s0ssos

I read a blogger saying neither Amex nor Chase protected him in a dispute. I have a giftcard I bought a long time ago and the company went out of business, and the only way to get the money back is via a dispute. So the Amex transaction was about a year and a half ago, and the Citi transaction about a year ago. I disputed it with Citi and they credited it to me and now ruled it as final. Amex has said it is too far back.
I don't know if it would be different if Amex's transaction were a year ago only, but I'm thinking maybe Citi is actually the best at protecting the cardholder.

garykung

FWIW - what has happened to you is not a good case for measuring dispute quality.

Under the law, i.e. Fair Credit Billing Act, both of your disputes are beyond the statutory deadline. So in theory, both disputes should be denied.

The problem is Citi's system is unique in term of small amount purchases:

Citi Disputes Automatic Under $30

In that case, Citi, instead of processing the dispute, issued you a permanent credit instead.

I would consider this lucky. Beside - I don't believe that gift card purchases are disputable anyway (unless fraudulent or the card balance does not match with the purchase).

s0ssos

I guess it is more about qualify of service.

And citi's charge was over $30, like 4x. So that's not the case here.

Is Citi just much better than Amex or Chase? In actual protection if you have charge issues?

And actually if you look at Amex's terms of service they don't have a deadline for chargebacks, as opposed to Visa and Mastercard, ironically. That is, on the merchant's side.

garykung

Still no. I still consider this lucky.

This is a case that you should not be succeeded at all. But you got your money back somehow. It is not a matter of customer service as none of them is doing this wrong.

But I would give you that it is easier to deal with Citi than AMEX due to system design.

ManUpOrShutUp

It's probably just luck of the draw here. My experience with Citi was the opposite. I paid ~$450 for an automotive service. The service was done, but the mechanic (Mech #1) half-a**ed it. I contacted Mech #1, repeatedly, to try to get him to redo the job, but he ignored my calls and texts. I ended up having to pay another mechanic (Mech #2) $600+ to redo the same job. I got a receipt from Mech #2 and because I knew Citi would ask, had him indicate his findings on the receipt (bad tstat, improperly sealed gasket, etc.). I filed a dispute against Mech #1 and included my receipt from Mech #2 to support my claim. Citi contacted Mech #1 and he claimed I never contacted him. Moreover, he responded as if I was saying I didn't make the charge and he included previous receipts from my visit to the shop as proof that I had used his services before. Citi contacted me and asked me to send them a copy of the receipt from Mech #2 - the receipt I already sent them. I called and they acknowledged they had it and it must have been a goof on their part. They asked me to upload it again just in case so I did. They assured me it would be handled. I got a second request for that same info along with a note that if I did not provide said info, the dispute would be closed in Mech #1's favor. I uploaded the doc again (third time), called, confirmed receipt and got another promise that it would be handled along with another apology for the errors. Then I got a notice that the dispute was closed in Mech #1's favor because I never submitted the documents Citi asked for. I called and complained and they assured me they would reopen the dispute. They never did. Moreover, I got a second letter from them stating that they determined I did indeed authorize the charge so that was that. Once again, the dispute was filed for services that were not properly rendered. None of it made any sense, it was completely mishandled numerous times and I never got it resolved. I thought for someone that spends over $60k per year, every year on that very same card with maybe 3 disputes totaling less than $300 in 20 years of card membership I would have received better service. Nope.

satman40

Your way past your time limit sorry Charlie you got 60 days to dispute a charge

mia

You can file a complaint here: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/ explaining that Citi did not process the dispute on the correct basis. Keep the complaint concise.

Mike B

For the. E edit of anyone seeing the thread title and wondering about dispute experiences, I had an excellent experience with AMEX dispute resolution back in February. I had taken over my deceased mother’s Gold Card, as it was the only way to keep the over 100K MR points she had accumulated. She had a subscription to Kindle books with Amazon, and Amazon would not stop the monthly charges because I didn’t know her Amazon password. I filed a complaint with AMEX for a couple of months of the subscription fee. I had previously provided a copy of the death certificate to AMEX. AMEX refunded the subscription charges, and also refunded an annual fee renewal charged after her death that I didn’t know about and had missed!

I have no experience with CITI dispute resolution.

Kagehitokiri

amex by far best regarded for decades. never seen anyone argue otherwise. this is why ~200,000 companies in US do not take amex while taking other credit cards. especially health insurance companies and medical providers. those are the only companies i have seen take credit cards but not amex. obviously excluding costco because visa and citi 'overpaid' in order to make amex lose their contract.

only one said to be equal or better was diners club, dont recall which country or personal vs business

not sure if there is a comparative thread on FT about this, but there is a massive number of posts.