Work out your deadline before you assume you are too late

More claims die from a wrong assumption about timing than from any other cause. Someone works out that they paid seven months ago, concludes the 120 days is long gone, and never asks.

Frequently they are wrong.

The general rule

The chargeback window is generally 120 days. It runs from the date you knew, or reasonably should have known, that there was a problem, not automatically from the date of payment.

In some circumstances an outer limit of 540 days from the transaction applies, which gives considerably more room than most people realise.

Working out your start date

Goods that never arrived

From the promised delivery date. If no date was given, the Consumer Rights Act implies delivery within 30 days, so the clock starts 30 days after purchase.

Example: ordered 1 March, promised for 15 June, nothing arrived. The clock starts 15 June, not 1 March. You have until roughly mid-October.

Services never provided

From the date the work was due to be carried out.

Example: $3,000 deposit paid 10 January for a bathroom booked for 2 September. The fitter never appears. The clock starts 2 September, so a deposit paid nearly eight months earlier is comfortably in time.

Where the trader keeps promising

Each new promise can move the start date, because you did not yet know the service would not be performed. Keep every message giving a new date. those messages are what establish your start date.

Travel and events

From the intended travel date or the event date.

Example: a concert ticket bought in February for a November show that is cancelled. The clock starts in November.

Subscriptions and recurring payments

Each payment has its own window. Older payments may be out of time while recent ones are not, so a long-running subscription usually yields a partial claim even when it started years ago.

Unauthorised transactions

Different rules entirely. You have up to thirteen months from the debit date to notify your bank, and the bank must refund by the end of the next business day after notification.

Section 75 runs on a different scale

Section 75 is a contract claim. The limitation period is six years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and five years in Scotland, generally running from the breach.

So if your chargeback window has genuinely closed and you paid by credit card on a cash price over $100, you may still have years left. Always check Section 75 before concluding a claim is dead.

The complaint clock is separate

Once you complain to a regulated firm it has eight weeks to issue a final response. From the date of that response you have six months to refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman.

That six months is strict. Diarise it the day the letter arrives.

A worked example

Sofa ordered 3 February for $1,800 on a debit card. Delivery promised for 20 April, pushed to 5 June, then to 12 July. Nothing arrived and the retailer stopped replying in August.

• Wrong: "I paid in February, so the 120 days ran out in June."
• Right: the last promised date was 12 July, so the window runs to roughly 9 November.
• Also: paid by debit card, so no Section 75. Chargeback is the only card route, which makes the timing critical.

If you are close to a deadline

Submit something today rather than a perfect claim next week. A written request with the core facts protects your position, and you can supply further evidence afterwards.

Our letter template takes about ten minutes. If a deadline is genuinely imminent, use the deadline check form and we will confirm where you stand at no charge, whether or not you go on to instruct us.