My bank refused to do a charge back
Call Comcast during a non-peak time (first thing in the morning?), wait on hold, and politely explain what happened and request a $50 credit. Also politely request that your premium support request be handled for free given how much hassle you've had getting disconnected. They'll be able to tell your premium request was never answered because there are no notes on your support tickets. Calling them is much easier than any of your other options. You can't make your bank do a charge back. This function is to assist with straight up fraud, not a customer service mistake. (Think spoofed or stolen card or if a vendor intentionally acted fraudulently.) While you may believe what they did is fraud, your bank will require that you provide the vendor with the opportunity to rectify the situation themselves. Trying to call back and giving up after a long hold time won't meet their standards. If banks started letting anyone unhappy with a vendor start doing charge backs, they would be doing nothing else all day. The issues you're describing has not reached the threshold for the bank to authorize a charge back.  Comcast has local and regional offices, and you could go in person to speak with someone. Maybe there isn't one near you. There are non-peak hours which wait times will be less. You'll just have to grin and bear it if you truly want the money back. Then, take your business elsewhere and post bad reviews online. Always keep in mind that when you eventually speak with someone, they will not be the person that messed up, and you should be overly nice and polite to them. I promise it will yield far better results than being surly and demanding. Another way to get Comcast's attention would be to file a complaint with the BBB. It might take longer, but I've had this work with big companies, usually with good results. Again, be nice to whomever contacts you. In reference to your recent duplicate question: Mastercard won't be able to help at all. They play no part in the transaction at all.
"Several options are available. She may ask the US bank to issue a debit card (VISA most probably) to her account, and mail this card to Russia. I think this can be done without much problems, though sending anything by mail may be unreliable. After this she just withdraws the money from local ATM. Some withdrawal fee may apply, which may be rather big if the sum of money is big. In big banks (Alfa-bank, Citibank Russia, etc.) are ATMs that allow you to withdraw dollars, and it is better to use one of them to avoid unfavorable exchange rate. She may ask the US bank to transfer the money to her Russian account. I assume the currency on the US bank account is US Dollars. She needs an US dollar account in any Russian bank (this is no problem at all).  She should find out from that bank the transfer parameters (реквизиты) for transfering US dollars to her account. This should include, among other info, a ""Bank correspondent"", and a SWIFT code (or may be two SWIFT codes). After this, she should contact her US bank and find out how can she request the money to be transferred to her Russian bank, providing these transfer parameters. I can think of two problems that may be here. First, the bank may refuse to transfer money without her herself coming to the bank to confirm her identity. (How do they know that a person writing or calling them is she indeed?) However, I guess there should be some workaround for this. Second, with current US sanctions against Russia, the bank may just refuse the transfer or will have do some additional investigations. However, I have heard that bank transfers from US to private persons to Russia are not blocked. Probably it is good to find this out in advance. In addition, the US bank will most probably charge some standard fee for foreign transfer. After this, she should wait for a couple of days, maybe up to week for the money to appear on Russian account. I have done this once some four years ago, and had no problems, though at that time I was in the US, so I just came to the bank myself. The bank employee to whom I talked obviously was unsure whether the transfer parameters were enough (obviously this was a very unusual situation for her), but she took the information from me, and I guess just passed it on to someone more knowledgable. The fee was something about $40. Another option that I might think of is her US bank issuing and mailing her a check for the whole sum, and she trying to cash it here in Russia. This is possible, but very few banks do cash checks here (Citibank Russia is among those that do). The bank will also charge a fee, and it will be comparable to transfer fee. Plus mailing anything is not quite reliable here. She would also have to consider whether she need to pay Russian taxes on this sum. If the sum is big and passes through a bank, I guess Russian tax police may find this out through and question her. If it is withdrawn from a VISA card, I think it will not be noticed, but even in this case she might be required to file a tax herself." Bank of America is the worst. Once I had a joint account with another individual that I had funded out of my account to make payroll.   When I found out that he had screwed two other people by stealing the payroll money I decided to disburse it myself and transferred it back to my corporate account on which I was the only signer.  He went back to the bank and effected a withdrawal from my account to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, put the money in the joint account and removed me as a signer.   The bank wouldn't give me my money back and I never collected from him.  Another time I tried to close my sons' accounts which were in inactive status.  Every day for a week they told me they could not close the account until it was active, but they were working on making it active.  Chase could do this in a minute.  I finally went to a branch and loudly informed the manager that maybe the bank was insolvent and that I should call the FDIC to see why they won't release my money.  He wanted to take me into his office.  I told him loudly, I know all about DDAs, Savings and CDs, I have run deposit operations for a major bank and wrote software to process them.  Just put a hold on the account, write me two cashiers check and offset them with a suspense voucher.  You do know how to write a suspense voucher don't you? It's just a general ledger entry to a suspense account.  Well he was so embarassed he would do anything to get me out of the branch and gave me the cashier's checks.  Fuck B of A. Yes, you can transfer money to your account, any bank will do it. The conversion charges will be there i.e. the diff between USD and the rate at which the bank sells it, usually Rs. 2/-, appx. In addition, transaction charge (not very high). As for taking from friends & repaying in India, check UAE tax treatement for taking money from friends (is it considered as your income & are you liable for taxes). As for giving back, get some documentation done as a loan, otherwise your friends may be considered to be taking gift/consideration/income from you and taxed. Most straight forward way is to transfer the money from your mother's account. If Apple uses the customer's bank's prefix, then the bank gets the charge sent directly to themselves and Apple is not a payment intermediary Yes as part of adding a Card to Apple Pay, the details are sent over to issuing Bank along with device details and other info. Based on verification, the Bank sends a DAN[Device Account Number] and other codes. After you show your phone at Point of Sale, DAN gets transmitted. This is similar as Card Number getting transmitted, there is additional info encoded. Visa then sends this back to Issuing Bank and based on DAN the actual card is charged. So yes Apple doesn't know your Card Number once it gets the DAN. it's entirely possible that organized-criminals could devise even harder-to-find NFC skimmers Right now criminals have found the easy step ... as part of set-up Apple Pay sends info the Issuing Bank to Verify. If you are frequent user of iTunes and have used the same card for years, etc, its auto approved. Else they use alternative method, i.e. call the customer, etc. It is easy here to spawn. I get card details, no need to spend time in duplicating stuff [mag or chip]. Just try registering on Apply Pay, some one less experienced from Customer Service calls up and I am approved. Use this for few places and then just delete this card and add a new one. As Apply Pay doesn't store my card, they don't know new from old ... "The bank SHOULD be able to issue you a new card without letting vendors roll over the recurring payments. In fact, I've never had a bank move recurring payments to a new card automatically, or even upon request; they've always told me to contact the vendor and give them my new card number. So go back to the bank, tell them specifically that you have a security issue and you want the new card issued WITHOUT carrying over any recurring charges, and see if they can do it properly. If not: 1) Issue a ""charge back"" every time a bogus charge comes in. This costs the vendor money, and should convince them to stop trying to access your card. It's a hassle because you have to keep contacting the bank about the bad charges, but it won't cost you more than time and a phone call or letter.  (The bank can tell you what their preferred process is for this.) 2) Consider moving to a bank that isn't stupidly over-helpful." could I decline it so the money would be returned back to the account they were transferred from? As a general banking practise, there is nothing automated that will allow you to mark something as return the funds. You would have to approach your Bank with a written statement mentioning that you don't recognise this credit as belonging to you and request the bank to take appropriate action. I can't find the underlying legislation, but a few online resources suggest that if you contact a lender about a payment plan, they should put repayments on hold temporarily: http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/keeps-you-awake/payday-rights.html We don’t think it’s fair if your lender: [...] Doesn’t help you   get on top of things if you ask for help or “breathing space” to sort   things out. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/borrowing-money/types-of-borrowing/loans/payday-loans/payday-loans-reasons-to-complain-about-your-lender/ If you've had problems repaying the loan, you can complain if your payday lender: [...] did not offer to freeze interest and charges if you are able to make payments under a reasonable repayment plan https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/problems-paying-back-payday-loans By law, they must: [...] Suspend recovery of the debt for a reasonable period if you’re developing a repayment plan with a debt adviser or on your own I'd start by making an immediate complaint to the lender. Make them aware that you're unable to meet basic living expenses because of the money they took, and ask for them to suspend collection temporarily and for the money to be returned. I would also dispute the charge with your bank on the grounds that it should not have been taken given the circumstances, and ask for them to credit your account while they investigate the dispute. They may not be too keen given it'll leave you overdrawn if they later reject the dispute, but it's worth asking. In parallel with that, contact Citizens Advice and/or the Financial Ombudsman (details in the links) and see if there's anything they can do or suggest. "The first thing you should do is write a letter to the collection company telling them that you dispute all charges and demand, per section 809 of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, that they immediately validate and confirm any and all debts they allege you owe. You should further request that that they only communicate with you by mail. Section 809 requires them to examine the legal documents showing you allegedly owe a debt and they are required to send this to you. This all creates a useful paper trail. When you send the letter, be sure to send it as certified mail with a return receipt. From your description, it doesn't sound like this will do anything, but it's important you do it within 30 days of them contacting you. This is because the law allows them to assume the debt is valid if you don't do it within 30 days of their initial contact. I recommend you speak with an attorney. Most states have a statute of limitation on debt of about 4 or 5 years. I don't know if that applies to courts though. Whatever you do, be very careful of the language you use when speaking with them. Always refer to it as ""the alleged debt,"" or ""the debt you allege I owe."" You don't want them misconstruing your words later on. As far as proving you paid it, I would look through every scrap of paper I'd ever touched looking for it. If that proves fruitless, try going to the courthouse and looking through their records. If they're saying you didn't pay, that's a long shot, but still worth a try. You could also try bank records from that time, like if you have a Visa statement showing $276.17 paid to the Nevada Court or something like that. If all else fails, the law allows you to send the collector a letter saying that you refuse to pay the debt. The collection company then legally must stop contacting you unless it's to tell you they are suing you or to tell you they won't contact you again. I strongly advise against this though. Your best bet is going to be speaking with a qualified attorney. Edit: You should also pull your credit reports to make sure this isn't being reported there. Federal law gives you the right to have a free copy of each of your credit reports once every year. If it is being reported, send a certified letter with return receipt to each bureau which is reporting it telling them you dispute the information. They then are required to confirm the information. If they can't confirm it, they must remove it. If they do confirm it, you are legally entitled to put a statement disputing the information next to it on your credit report. I am not an attorney. This is not legal advise. You should consult an attorney who is licensed to practice law in your particular jurisdiction."