call4me blog

We called Chase, Capital One, Discover, PNC and Wells Fargo on the same Saturday evening and asked how a dispute works. All five put us through to a person. Here's what they said, what federal law actually requires for credit and debit cards, and the 60-day deadline three of the five representatives left out.

We called PNC's credit card line on a Saturday evening with no card, said we wanted to dispute a transaction, and reached a live representative 2 minutes 16 seconds in. Here's the dispute menu, what he said about evidence, timing and provisional credit, how PNC debit disputes differ, and the full 4 minute recording.

We called Chase Card Services on a Saturday evening with no card, asked how a cardmember disputes a charge, and reached a live specialist 2 minutes 14 seconds in. Here's the phone tree, what the specialist said, what Chase's own dispute page says, and the full 4 minute recording.

We called 1-800-DISCOVER on a Saturday evening with no card and asked how a cardmember disputes a charge. We reached a live person in billing disputes 2 minutes 3 seconds in, who wouldn't answer anything without an account. Here's the phone tree, what Discover's cardmember agreement says to do instead, and the full 4 minute recording.

We called 1-800-CAPITAL on a Saturday evening with no card, asked how a cardholder disputes a charge, and reached a live representative 47 seconds in. Here's the phone tree, what he said about verification, provisional credits and hours, what Capital One's dispute page says, and the full 6 minute recording.

We called Wells Fargo's credit card line on a Saturday evening with no card, asked how a cardholder disputes a charge, and reached a live representative 2 minutes 52 seconds in. Here's the phone tree, what he said, the one answer he got wrong, the separate debit card claim lines, and the full 9 minute recording.

We went back through 123 customer service calls we've published to 71 companies, and timed how long each one took to reach a live person. Here is what got through, what didn't, where AI assistants and account number prompts stopped us, and the full dataset as a CSV.