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Your Credit Billing and Electronic Fund Transfer
Statements
It is important to check credit billing and electronic fund transfer
account statements regularly. These documents may contain mistakes
that could damage your credit status or reflect improper charges
or transfers. If you find an error or discrepancy, notify the company
and contest the error immediately. Here are a few mistakes for which
there are established procedures of resolution:
- charges or electronic fund transfers that you - or anyone you
have authorized to use your account - have not made;
- charges or electronic fund transfers that are incorrectly identified
or show the wrong amount or date;
- computation or similar errors;
- failure to reflect payments, credits, or electronic fund transfers
properly;
- not mailing or delivering credit billing statements to your
current address, as long as that address was received by the creditor
in writing at least 20 days before the billing period ended;
- charges or electronic fund transfers for which you request an
explanation or documentation, due to a possible error.
The FCBA generally applies only to "open end" credit
accounts - credit cards, revolving charge accounts (such as department
store accounts), and overdraft checking accounts. It does not apply
to loans or credit sales that are paid according to a fixed schedule
until the entire amount is paid back, such as an automobile loan.
The EFTA applies to electronic fund transfers, such as those involving
automatic teller machines (ATMs), point-of-sale debit transactions,
and other electronic banking transactions.
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