3 Tips For Disputing a Credit Card Charge

By Ashyiah Hill

Disputing a credit card charge can save you money when a purchase goes awry or when someone uses your card without your permission. However, the process of disputing a credit card charge can be a little complicated. Plus, when you dispute a charge, it's often an all or nothing situation. You'll almost always either get all your money back if the credit card company decides in your favor, or none of it if the company decides in favor of the vendor.

Whether you're dealing with goods that haven't been delivered, cancelled travel plans, or an unauthorized charge, these three tips will help you in your credit card dispute:

Know the Rules in the Fair Credit Billing Act

Obviously, you've got to understand what protection you have under the law before you know how far to take the credit card dispute process. Under the Fair Credit Billing Act, many different types of disputes are covered. Here's a list of what you can dispute according to this law:

• Unauthorized charges: You're only responsible for up to $50 for unauthorized charges, and some credit card companies limit your liability to $0 in their own contracts.
• Non-delivery: If you're charged for goods or services that were unacceptable, weren't delivered at all, or weren't delivered as agreed, you can dispute the charge.
• Errors: Charges that involve mathematical errors or that list the wrong date or the wrong amount can also be disputed.
• Failure to pay: If you've returned an item successfully but the vendor doesn't post payment to your credit card, you can dispute the original transaction.
• Failure to bill: If your creditor gets your change of address in writing before a billing period ends but fails to send your bills to the right address, you can dispute their charges.

These rules offer more protection in some areas than in others, and for the most part, credit card
companies get to decide whether you or the vendor who is charging you is in the wrong. For instance, if you buy furniture that is delivered months late, the credit card company could negate the charge because the goods were not delivered as agreed, but they could also rule in favor of the vendor because the furniture was eventually delivered.

Check with the Vendor First

Because a credit card dispute is an all or nothing proposition, you may need to go to the vendor first to try to work out your problems with them directly. Often times, instead of getting a full refund, you'll get a certificate for future services or products, or you may even get a partial refund.

Unless the charge is very large and the process of disputing it is financially high stakes for you, checking with the vendor can be a better option. When you work directly with a vendor, you may get something back. If they won't work with you at all, then you can go to the credit card company in hopes that they'll help. But if you go directly to the credit card company and they rule in favor of the vendor, you won't get anything back, and you won't have anywhere else to turn except, possibly, and expensive lawsuit.

File it as a Fraudulent Charge if at all Possible

Any time there are unauthorized charges on your credit card, make sure you file them as such. The law offers more protection for unauthorized charges, whether they're from a thief or from your teenager who swiped your card to pay for an online purchase or even from a vendor who charged you for services or goods you didn't ask for. Of course, you should never be fraudulent yourself by saying that a charge was unauthorized if it was authorized by you, but if you can file the charge this way, you'll get more protection and, often times, a better response from your credit card company.

Know Your Credit Card Provider

One thing that you should always check out when looking at credit card reviews to try to find the best possible credit card for your needs is the company's records of settling disputes with customers. While a credit card company may not openly share these exact statistics, you may look at reviews from other consumers who have worked with the company on disputes. At the least, you want to make sure that the credit card company you choose works with customers courteously and is easy to file a dispute with.

Disputing a credit card charge takes some time, and it needs to be done in writing. But it can definitely be worth it if it saves you money on goods and services you didn't receive as promise or charges you didn't authorize.

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How To Interpret Your Dreams

Did you wake up from a weird dream confused by the images that you saw? Did you visit various websites to check the symbols and their definitions in order to make sense of what happened during your dream life?

The truth is, no one can interpret your dreams better than you can. Your dream world is highly personal and each scenario that you encounter has a meaning that only you can decipher. If you really want to know what your dream means try answering these questions?

1. What is happening in your waking life that you wish would be different?
Your dreams may be an indication of your secret wishes for yourself.

2. How does the dream make you feel when you wake up?
Sometimes the symbols in your dreams have nothing to do with what the dream is trying to teach you. Often, the emotional state you are in when you awake from a dream is the dominant message you can take away from the dream. If you are confused when you wake up, you may be feeling the same way about an issue in your life and it needs to be confronted.

3. What are your best wishes for your life?
Since you are the author of your life, which means you have the power to give definitions to the situations and people you encounter, you can decide for yourself what your dreams mean. If you see a beautiful shoe in your dream, you can decide for yourself what that symbol means. You can say, "I saw a shoe in my dream and that means that it is time for me to move on in life" or "I saw a shoe in my dream so that means that I have a beautiful surprise coming my way." Even a horrible dream can be interpreted to mean that you have faced your worst nightmare in your dreams and you won't have to experience it in your waking life.


You have the ultimate power over the meaning of your dreams. Choose good definitions. Your dreams only have the definitions that you give them.

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10 Steps To A Weed Free Lawn

By Tami Moore

1) Keep pulling the weeds. You're going to get new ones every year (sorry, but if your neighbors aren't weeding, you'll get weed seeds) but the more you weed, the healthier your grass will be because the weeds won't be stealing the nutrients.

2) Saturate the soil. If you don't want your yard to look like a cornfield, you won't go all the way to tilling (if you don't care, it WILL help), but you can cheat and go somewhere in the middle. You can either buy or rig together some shoes that have sharp nail-like bottoms. Your feet are safe, but every step should stab lovely holes into your turf. This is good for any soil, but especially for dry, brittle dirt (like we had in Texas). If you don't have a big yard and you have a very small budget you can run around with a pencil, stabbing your lawn. Bonus points if combat curious neighbor stares with shrill giggling or yelling about evil gnomes.

3) If you have a clay soil...well, you probably wouldn't have any lawn at all, so we'll skip this one and assume you don't.

4) Seed. Seeding is very important if you're dealing with sparse grass. If you are in a neighborhood where you can get away with it, your grass will seed itself for free (especially now that you've weeded! Well done!). Just don't mow it for a while. Once the seed heads appear, they'll dry out, puff up, then start to release if shaken. After that, you can mow, and the next lawn will be fuller than the previous one. Alternately, buy a bag of seed from the store of your choosing (make sure it's a kind of grass that doesn't need heavy fertilization and that does well in your area and shade/sun levels). DO seed when it's going to rain. DO water your freshly-seeded yard if it's not going to rain. DO NOT seed if it's a particularly blustery day. Unless you're trying to seed the neighborhood, then go right ahead. =]

5) Fertilization is rarely necessary (unless you have a particularly finicky breed of grass, and I am looking at YOU, St. Augustine) and it's kind of terrible for the environment and water supply (for humans as well as fishes). It DOES work ... but sometimes it works all too well and you end up mowing four times as much as your neighbors.

6) Be prepared for it to take a year or two to REALLY get going. My mom seeded our Texas backyard and religiously picked up sticker plants by hand for two years before the grass looked "pretty" instead of "patchy". By the time four years had passed, everyone in the neighborhood asked her how she did it.

7) I sound like more of an expert than I am, so I DO recommend doing your own research and ignoring anything I said that doesn't sound right.

8) Worms are your buddies. If you can get a light, moist, dark soil full of worms, you're set.

9) One of the best places to ask around would be at a local native plant store, if you've got one. Not a big box greenhouse, but someone who knows what grass in the area you live in is supposed to look like and behave like. Bonus: native plants NATURALLY grow in your area, which means you need to do almost nothing in order to maintain them. They don't need babysitting or fertilizing or extra watering or anything.

10) If you live in a winter/snow climate and has trees (not pine trees) mulch/chop those leaves up or leave their autumn leaves on the lawn over the winter, they'd be doing their lawn a HUGE favor. Those dead leaves are nutrient city for the lawn, plus the extra ground cover helps protect against frosts. It's not very pretty to just leave it instead of mulching it up, though.

Good Luck!

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How To Write Your Own Self Help Book in 12 Days

By Te-Erika Patterson

Anyone can publish a book these days. With the emergence of POD (publish on demand) companies where authors can write and upload their books for sale to customers on an as needed basis as well as the Kindle book publishing method, many are realizing their dream of holding their very own books in their hand and adding the word AUTHOR to their biographies. In this article I will teach you the process behind writing your own self help book in 12 days.

Organizing Your Book – Day One

Organizing a book will only take one day as you prepare the outline. Decide on a topic for your book. I usually decide on the name of my book first and it inspires me throughout my writing process.

After you have your topic, write down 10 questions your book will answer concerning your topic. Each of these questions will become your book chapters. Since most books have 10 chapters you can add more if you’d like, but you don’t have to.

Now you should have a book title and a list of questions (chapters). For each question write down as many answers to the question as you can think of. List these answers as bullets under each question. Move through each of your chapters this way until you have outlined all of them.

Writing Your Book – Day Two through Eleven

You can write one chapter a day by deciding which day you want to write and sitting down to do it. You already have the topic questions and the answers, all you have to do is expound on each answer. Use examples, share stories, resources and information to validate your views.

Write out one chapter per day and don’t worry about editing anything, that will come later.

Polishing Your Book's Structure– Day Twelve

Now that you have the guts of your book written you can go ahead and change the chapter questions to statements. Be creative with your chapter headings. Write headings that will grab attention and also support your book title. Add an introduction to your book that explains why you wrote the book and how the reader will benefit from reading it.

The rest of the process is editing and you’ll have to develop your own strategy for that. For tips on structure, editing, formulating plots for fiction books and how to market your book, I highly recommend that you order Nick Daws' Course How To Write A Book in 28 Days. This will become your new book writing bible. It was extremely useful to me. I wrote my first self help book in just 6 weeks while a full time graduate student and single mom.

Happy Writing!

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VIDEO: How To Braid Hair

Learn how to do a french braid and save your child a few headaches from those ponytails.

VIDEO BELOW-

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VIDEO: How To Change The Oil In Your Car

Sometimes you have those bad days where you can't seem to find a man to charm into taking care of the little things like repairing the screen door or changing your oil. For these tricky situations, you may have to learn to do it yourself.

HOW TO VIDEO: Below the Fold.

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Basic Credit Repair Tips

The basic strategy to repairing your credit is as follows:

1. Get a copy of your credit report.
2. Analyze your report by making a list of all items you consider to be untrue or negative.
3. For each item on your list, write down exactly why you believe the information is incorrect.
4. Write a dispute letter to each of the credit bureaus.
5. Send the letters to the credit bureaus. Be sure to send them registered or certified mail so that you can track each one.
   
6. Keep a record of your efforts filed away so that you can retrieve it and add to it later. Record when you sent your letters and where you sent them to.
7. Wait for the bureaus to investigate your claims.
8. Record each of the responses after analyzing the results.
9. Repeat.

Were the items corrected to your satisfaction?

Continue the above steps until you the dispute is settled to your satisfaction. There is no fee for a reinvestigation. If you don’t get the results you want, dispute the listing again.

You can do this. It will take patience but it will pay off.

Good luck!

For My Savvy Sisters: Have you taken the opportunity to review your credit history this year? Have you undertaken the task of repairing your own credit? How did things turn out?

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VIDEO: Make Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits At Home

I was a SUPERSTAR server at Red Lobster and although their Cheddar Bay Biscuits are FREE with any meal and you can take home as many as you'd like if you just ask the server, sometimes you might not want to run out and get them every time you have a craving. Try this recipe and tell me if it works for you.

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