Notify your credit card company within 60 days of the unauthorized charge appearing on your periodic statement (which is why, depending on when you notice it, you may want to bypass paypal completely and go directly to your credit card company);
Your credit card company will often make you submit your claim in writing;
Your credit card company has 10 days to investigate the charge. If their investigation will take more than 10 days, they must give you provisional credit for the charge, and then resolve the claim within 45 days. If eventually they decide against you, they must provide you proof of why they believe the charge is accurate.
Usually if the charge is less than $25, the credit card company will just refund you the money outright rather than going through the expense of investigating the claim (dependent of course on your history on the account and history of charge-backs). In any case, they must give you provisional credit within 10 days, and resolve the claim within 45 days. There are certain cases that they can extend the investigation up to 90 days. In any case, the credit card company will want to know about any fraudulent activity so they can put a fraud alert on your account and monitor your transaction activity more closely.
These dispute procedures should be included with the disclosures on your monthly credit card statement, but I would definitely call customer service directly. They generally have a specific option to report fraudulent activity. They can vary by institution, but generally cannot be more restrictive than I have outlined above.
Good luck, and feel free to contact me with any questions.
Brent J. Jensen
Bank Compliance and Consumer Protection Officer
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