A merchant won't refund you, a charge that shouldn't be there, or a collector chasing a debt? Dispute it formally.

You make one choice, and the facts decide the rest. First you tell us whether you're disputing a charge on your card or account, or a debt a collection agency is pursuing you for — we don't guess at that, because only you know it, and the form has no default. Pick the collector and the letter goes to the collection agency under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and nowhere else. Pick a charge and the facts take over from there. A charge you never authorized on a credit card always gets a Fair Credit Billing Act billing-error notice to your card issuer's billing-inquiries department. So does a refused refund, if you paid by credit card, already asked the merchant, and gave us the statement date confirming your issuer's 60-day window is still open — that route has statutory teeth a merchant demand doesn't, so it's the stronger play. Otherwise — you haven't asked the merchant yet, the window has closed, you didn't give us a statement date so we can't confirm it's open, or you paid another way — we draft a contract-based refund demand addressed to the merchant instead, citing its own cancellation or refund policy and, where available, your state's consumer protection law.

For a charge you didn't authorize, we can't help with any of those — only an unauthorized charge on a credit card gets an FCBA letter. Contact your bank directly; for debit, bank transfer, or a payment app that's their fraud or electronic-transfer dispute process, and it can often reverse the charge faster than any letter. If instead a merchant is refusing a refund you're owed under its own policy, we can still draft that demand regardless of how you paid.

No. We draft letters for one specific disputed timeshare charge — a rescission-period claim, a disputed maintenance fee or special assessment, or a refund for a cancelled stay. We do not draft timeshare exit or contract-cancellation letters, full stop. That segment is where consumers are most reliably fleeced by services that promise to get you out and either don't deliver or damage your position further. If your goal is exiting the contract generally, this isn't the right tool.

Your notice must reach your issuer within 60 days of the statement that first showed the error. If you're demanding a refund from a merchant instead, there's no FCBA deadline — our letter sets its own firm 14-day deadline for the merchant to respond.

When your letter goes to your card issuer and reaches them within the FCBA's 60-day window, you may withhold payment on the disputed amount while it's under investigation — you still owe the rest of your balance as usual. Past that window, the letter can still go to your issuer where that applies, but as a request rather than a statutory right to withhold payment. A merchant refund demand never carries that right; it simply demands the money back.

A charge you didn't authorize, a charge for the wrong amount, duplicate billing, goods or services you never received, or goods or services that weren't as described or were defective.

That's a claims-and-defenses situation under the FCBA — you should first attempt to resolve it with the merchant. Our letter classifies your dispute and notes that step where it applies.

Under the FCBA, when your notice reaches your issuer within the 60-day window, it must acknowledge your dispute within 30 days and resolve it within two billing cycles, and confirm the outcome in writing. Outside that window, we still draft a letter to the issuer where that's the right recipient, but it asks rather than invokes those statutory deadlines.

One of four things, and you pick which — the letter does exactly the one you chose and never blends two. A validation demand asks the collector to verify the debt and name the original creditor. A cease-communication notice states in writing that you refuse to pay or want contact to stop, which is what invokes 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(c). A dispute states the basis you actually gave — not yours, already paid, wrong amount, identity theft, wrong person — and demands verification. A settlement offer puts forward a figure you supplied, expressly without admitting the debt is valid, and asks for written confirmation before you pay anything.

No, and we won't write a letter that says it will. Disputing a debt doesn't erase it, doesn't remove it from your credit report, and doesn't stop a collector from suing. What it does do is force the account onto the record: once you've disputed it, the collector can't report credit information about it without also reporting that it's disputed, and inside the validation window it has to stop collecting until it sends you verification.

We won't state that it is. Whether a debt is time-barred turns on your state, the kind of debt, and dates you may not have — and in some states a payment or a written acknowledgment restarts the clock, which is exactly why a careless letter can make things worse. Where the age of the account suggests the question is live, the letter says you believe the debt may fall outside the applicable limitations period and asks the collector to state the date of first delinquency. It names no state statute, and it concedes nothing.

The FDCPA gives you a private right of action: actual damages, such additional damages as the court may allow up to $1,000 in an individual action, and costs and a reasonable attorney's fee if you win — with a one-year deadline from the violation. That $1,000 is a ceiling the court may allow in the case, not an amount per violation, and our letters never claim otherwise or name a total you intend to recover. If the conduct has been serious, talk to a consumer attorney.