How long does a credit card refund take?

When it comes to figuring out how long it will take you to get a refund, there is no exact answer.  It can vary depending on what type of purchase and refund you are trying to get.  There are several factors involved that will affect the length of time to get a refund, which will be outlined below.  

Getting a Refund on a Purchase

If you have recently made a purchase, either online or in a physical store, you may receive your product and decide that you do not want it after all.  If it was made online, you then send it back in the mail, and if it was in person, you bring it back to the physical store to get a refund.  At this point, you will be expecting to get your money back but are wondering how long it will take. 

Because there are varying ways that the retailers and credit card issuers can set up their refund policies, there is no exact way to know how long it is going to take.  The best estimate of the length is around 2 weeks, with the average length of time found to be 15.8 days.  However, it can be much quicker and even within a matter of days.  One of the biggest online merchants, Amazon.com, has one of the quickest turnaround times and will usually give you a refund within less than a week.  Below are some typical retailers and their refund policies to help you get a better understanding. 

PayPal- This is one of the most common services used to send and receive payments online.  Their policy states that it can take up to 30 days for a refund but can change depending on which credit card company they are dealing with.

Amazon- The largest online retailer has one of the best return policies due to their focus on customer service.  On their website, they state that it will take 2 business days to process the refund after receiving the returned item.  From this point, it will only take another 3-5 business days for the refund to be added to your account.  

Target- This large retailer also has a very customer-friendly policy, stating that it will take them 5 days after the product is inspected to process the refund.  From there, it will take 1-3 days for the refund to be posted to your account or 1-2 days if using a Target RedCard. 

Walmart- The largest retailer in the world has a very fast refund policy.  On their website, they state that the refund will be posted within 5 days.  However, this can change depending on your financial institution.  

Square- Similar to PayPal, Square is an online payment service that is used by many small businesses.  Their refund policy states that it will take them 2-7 days to process the request, and then another 2-7 days for the request to process.  

Billing Disputes

Another reason you may want to get a refund is if you feel you were unfairly charged.  In this case, you will want to make a billing dispute so that you do not have to pay for something you did not purchase.  Fighting a large credit card company on an error may seem daunting, but there are laws in place to help you out.  The Fair Credit Billing Act, or FCBA, helps make it more possible for you to win a dispute on a charge.  This can include any mistake made on your bill including wrong amounts, wrong dates, charges for items you never received or arrived differently than expected, and transactions in which a service was performed poorly.  

There is a certain timeline outlined by the FCBA, so you need to make sure you are following it in order to get your money back.  Initially, you have 60 days to dispute a charge.  If not done by this time, then the dispute will be invalid.  After that, the credit card issuer has to acknowledge your dispute within 30 days of receiving it.  They then have to return the funds to your account within 90 days of acknowledging the dispute.  Under the maximum scenario, it can take up to six months for you to receive a refund.  However, most of the time it will not take this long, and the sooner you dispute the charge, the sooner you can get your money back.  

How to Get Your Billing Dispute Refund Faster

As previously mentioned, the maximum time to get a refund for a billing dispute is six months because of your protections under the FCBA.  However, there are ways to expedite this and get the funds added to your account sooner.  For example, if your card issuer is American Express, they state that they will resolve the dispute within a month.  Additionally, the quickest way to resolve a dispute can be to contact the merchant themselves and explain to them the mistake.  They can cancel or reverse a charge and solve the problem much quicker.  The best way to handle this is to show them your receipt if at a physical store, or call customer service if the purchase was made online.  Most of the time the simple solution is just to cancel a charge if you were charged twice.  

Fraud Dispute

Yet another reason for getting a refund on your credit card may be that there was fraud involved.  This means that someone got a hold of your credit card information from either a database or skimmer.  They may have also found your lost card or stolen it, and then used it to make purchases.  In either case, you should contact your credit card issuer immediately when you think that there may have been fraud committed.  Just like a billing dispute, you have 60 days to report the fraudulent charges to your issuer.  Again, it is very important that you do this as soon as possible.  There are many different scenarios that can affect how long it takes for the issue to be resolved.  Some can be handled over the phone and fixed relatively quickly, but larger cases of fraud require an investigation.  This may require you to exchange emails with the company to help them out.  You will then receive a refund when the investigation has been concluded.  As outlined by the consumer protections in the FCBA, the issue must be resolved, and you must have your money back within 90 days if it is determined that you have been a victim of fraud.  

How to Get a Refund Faster

With any of these cases, there are certain things you can do to help out the process.  After all, the merchants and credit card issuers are businesses and are trying to make money, so they typically do their due diligence to make sure you are telling the truth.  The most important thing you can do to help them out is to save your receipts.  This helps the issuer know that you are not making anything up.  If you are getting a refund for something ordered online, it can be useful to take pictures of the item to show that it did not arrive as expected.  In general, the simpler the claim is, the faster it will take for your refund to get resolved.