How to dispute a charge on Greenlight card

Lately, we’ve received a lot of questions about what to do in light of the recent data breach at Target retail stores. This theft of credit and debit card information could impact tens of millions of consumers and we want to let you know what you can do to protect yourself if you spot fraudulent charges.

If your information was part of a breach, the most immediate risk is that the thieves may make unauthorized charges or debits to your accounts. Keep a close eye on your account activity and report suspicious transactions immediately to your bank or credit card provider. The sooner you tell your provider about any unauthorized debits or charges, the better off you’ll be.

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1. Check your accounts for unauthorized charges or debits and continue monitoring your accounts
2. Report a suspicious charge or debit immediately
3. Submit a complaint if you have an issue with your bank or card provider’s response
4. Know when to ignore anyone contacting you to “verify” your account information by phone or email

1. Check your accounts for unauthorized charges or debits and continue monitoring your accounts

If you have online or mobile access to your accounts, check your transactions as frequently as possible. If you receive paper statements, be sure to open them and review them closely. If your provider offers it, consider signing up for email or text alerts.

Report even small problems right away. Sometimes thieves will process a small debit or charge against your account and return to take more from your bank account or add more charges to your credit card if the first smaller debit or charge goes through. And keep paying attention—fraudulent charges to your card or fraudulent debits to your bank account might occur many months after the theft of your information during a data breach.

2. Report a suspicious charge or debit immediately

Contact your bank or card provider immediately if you suspect an unauthorized debit or charge. If a thief charges items to your account, you should cancel the card and have it replaced before more transactions come through. Even if you’re not sure that PIN information was taken, consider changing your PIN just to be on the safe side.

If your physical credit card has not been lost or stolen, you’re not responsible for unauthorized charges. You can protect yourself from being liable for unauthorized debit card charges by reporting those charges immediately after you find out about them or they show up on your bank statement.

If you spot a fraudulent transaction, call the card provider’s toll-free customer service number immediately. Follow up with a written letter. Your monthly statement or error resolution notice will tell you how and where to report fraudulent charges or billing disputes.

When you communicate in writing, be sure to keep a copy for your records. Write down the dates you make follow-up calls and keep this information together in a file.

If your card or PIN was lost or stolen, different rules may apply. Your timeline for reporting after your card, PIN, or other access device is lost or stolen is tied to when you discover the loss or theft or when unauthorized transactions show up on your bank statement. Therefore, you should make the report as soon as you know that there is a problem

3. Submit a complaint if you have an issue with your bank or card provider’s response

Debit card issuers should investigate the charges (generally within 10 business days) and take action quickly (generally within 3 business days). For your credit card, it can take longer, but you don’t have to pay the charge while it’s under investigation. You also have a right to see the results of their investigations.

If you have an issue with their response, you can submit a complaint online or by calling (855) 411-2372. For TTY/TDD, call (855) 729-2372.

If you have other questions about billing disputes and your debit and credit card protections, you can Ask CFPB.

4. Know when to ignore anyone contacting you to “verify” your account information by phone or email

This could be a common scam, often referred to as “phishing,” to steal your account information. Banks and credit unions never ask for account information through phone or email that they initiate. If you receive this type of contact, you should immediately call your card provider (using a customer service number that you get from a different source than the initial call or email) and report it.

For more information on phishing scams, check out the FTC’s consumer alerts .

For more information, check out the consumer advisory.

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If you paid for an item but never received it, or it arrived damaged, you may be frustrated and want your money back, justifiably. As a result, you may try to dispute it with your credit card issuer through the process of a chargeback.

Chargebacks are different from refunds, but both can result in you receiving a credit for an order that went wrong or a fraudulent charge on your account.

Below, CNBC Select reviews what a chargeback is, how it differs from a refund and how to ask for one if a delivery goes wrong or you see a red flag on your credit card statement.

Chargebacks are a consumer protection tool that allow consumers to get their money back for fraudulent charges or purchases that don't live up to standards by submitting a dispute with their card issuer.

If you notice a transaction on your credit card account that doesn't look familiar or run into issues with a recent order, you may want to (and should) dispute the transaction. Generally, you'll have two options when disputing a transaction: refund or chargeback.

A refund comes directly from a merchant, while a chargeback comes from your card issuer.

The first step in the dispute process should be to go directly to the merchant and request a refund. This may require you to bring the item back to the store with a copy of your receipt, or you may be able to contact customer support and get a refund online.

For instance, I recently received an item from Amazon that didn't live up to standards. The item was unwrapped and said "try me out." I began the dispute process by directly contacting Amazon customer service via chat and explaining the issue. Moments later I received a refund for the item, but that may not always be the case. If Amazon wasn't willing to credit the purchase, I would have requested a chargeback with my credit card issuer.

Chargebacks should be the next step if asking the merchant for a refund doesn't work. You initiate a chargeback directly with your card issuer in the hopes of the transaction being reversed.

There are several situations that qualify for requesting a chargeback, such as:

Fraud or unauthorized charges on your account: If you don't recognize a transaction and suspect it was from fraud.
Packages that were never delivered: You may receive notice that an item was delivered, but it actually wasn't.
Damaged or defective items: If an item came opened or missing certain parts.
Incorrect charges on your account: The cost of the item purchased was different than what you were actually charged (this happens most often at local businesses that enter prices manually).

Keep in mind, many credit card issuers offer $0 liability on unauthorized charges, so if you have the Citi® Double Cash Card or Chase Freedom®, you won't be liable for unauthorized charges.

If asking the merchant for a refund didn't work, request a chargeback with your credit card issuer. Many card issuers let you dispute transactions by phone, mail or online. You may also be able to submit a dispute directly through your card issuer's mobile app.

When you submit a chargeback, you may need to include supporting documents, such as copies of a receipt, invoice, contract and any communications you had with the merchant. Anticipate that the dispute can last up to 90 days or two billing cycles, whichever is shorter.

Once you submit a chargeback request, the exact process varies depending on your card issuer, network and situation, but generally results in some back-and-forth between various parties. Here's an example of how the process may go, according to Experian:

You file a chargeback request.
Your card issuer reviews the dispute and will decide if it's valid or if you have to pay. If your issuer accepts the dispute, they'll pass it on to the card network, such as Visa, Mastercard, American Express or Discover, and you may receive a temporary account credit.
The card network reviews the transaction and either requires your card issuer to pay or sends the dispute to the merchant's acquiring bank.
The merchant's acquiring bank takes one of two actions: Sends the dispute back to the card network and says the issuer is at fault or forwards the dispute to the merchant.
If the merchant gets it, they either agree to pay for the transaction or dispute the chargeback.
If the merchant disputes the chargeback, there may be more back-and-forth as the merchant, acquiring bank and card issuer try to settle the matter. But if the merchant agrees to pay, the process is a bit smoother.
At the end of the day, the card network decides who pays. A successful dispute will deem the temporary credit you received to become permanent.

Information about the Chase Freedom® has been collected independently by CNBC and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer of the cards prior to publication.

Editorial Note: Opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the Select editorial staff’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any third party.