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Assume you buy something and pay by credit card. Does anybody know how much time the vendor has to charge your card? Is it still legal if the vendor doesn't charge you immediately, but after months?

The thing is my (officially: non-existent) credit card has now been charged for something.

Let me explain:

  • It's the credit card from my previous company. I left my former company 10 months ago.
  • 10 months ago I received a confirmation from my previous company that my account linked to the credit card would be immediately closed.
  • But the expense only became visible now - months after the alleged closing.

As I haven't used the card for almost a year, there are just two options: 1) I've been scammed or 2) The expense is a service I bought 11 months ago and the company didn't charge me immediately, just after 11 months.

I'm not working there anymore and while working there I was reimbursed expenses but of course it would be difficult to get reimbursed for something that appeared in my account 10 months after leaving my position. In my online statement, the expense appears as generated a few days ago.

I have very limited opportunities of checking whether the service took place alsmost a year ago, so the question is: Would it be legal at all to charge me for something 11 months afterwards?

It's American Express in Europe (EU), if it plays any role.

1 Answers1

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I wanted to let you know in case this happens to someone in future.

I called Amex today and they told me the card has actually been blocked since October 2017. But, let me quote here, "the fact it's blocked doesn't mean people can't charge you if they have your card details".

I asked them what in this case "blocking" means. But they had no answer for me.

Anyways, what I've learnt is that I will probably write them an official letter to delete all my personal data (thank you GDPR), because otherwise there's no warranty that this won't happen to me in a year or two and I hate wasting time and energy for things like that. The other thing I've learnt is that I will avoid Amex as much as I can. For me it's not normal that you can block a card but people can still charge you.