Imagine that you have just received your credit card statement and you suspect you're only responsible for one charge on the whole bill - at the grocery store, but your credit card charges include taxi cabs, restaurant meals, a hotel suite and a large liquor store entry?

You may not know what your rights are with respect to fraudulent purchases on your credit card or if you purchased something with your credit card and never actually received the goods.

If you haven't encountered such hardships, consider yourself lucky! But hey, you never know when this could happen to you so it "pays" (or "saves") to know what to do in such an event.

Credit cards actually have a benefit that you are protected if you make a purchase that you are not satisfied with. Perhaps you hired a contractor to work on your home renovations and they did a shoddy job. You've already paid by credit card, but this is what you can do:

1. contact the contractor or merchant you made your purchase from. Most of the time, the merchant is more than happy to replace a broken item, perform the service again or refund the purchase back to your credit card. If you make a phone call, document it and follow up with a letter to cover your tracks in the event the merchant doesn’t follow through.

2. If for some reason they are not willing to do anything to correct the situation, you should contact your credit card company right away to report your case. Don’t wait because typically credit card companies require that you to report the problem ASAP.

Credit Card Fraudulent Charges

The Fair Credit Billing Act limits your liability in the case of fraud to $50 for any unauthorized transactions. If you find charges you definitely didn't make, call your credit card company and report every charge you didn't make, then follow their instructions on what to do next. Then review all your recent statements in case you missed any charges. You'll likely need to sign an affidavit.