Help! My credit card company reversed my $16,544 dispute a year later

Your bank can’t reverse a successful credit card dispute nearly a year after confirming a positive resolution. So why did Nusenda backtrack and surprise this customer with a $16,544 recharge long after his dispute was finalized?

That’s what the Consumer Rescue team aimed to find out after this unusual request for help hit our inbox. 

88-year-old John Kessell planned to take a bucket list trip with Vantage Deluxe World Travel last year. But those plans abruptly ended when the tour operator filed bankruptcy and permanently closed up shop months before his scheduled cruise.

On the day that Vantage Travel ceased to operate it owed 10,000 former customers about $110 million. It also owed an additional $70 million to secured creditors who had extended loans to the struggling company.

Luckily for Kessell, he’d charged his $16,544 Danube River cruise to his visa credit card issued by Nusenda. So, he was protected by the Fair Credit Billing Act and was able to easily file a credit card dispute. Initially, that jumbo payment he’d made to Vantage Travel was temporarily credited as the bank completed its investigation. After a three month investigation, Nusenda sent Kessell the good news. The chargeback case was closed in his favor. 

The $16,544 temporary credit became permanent in early September 2023. Kessell rebooked and enjoyed his bucket list cruise with another line. 

Crisis averted and all was as it should be for the octogenarian adventurer. 

That is until almost a year later when Nusenda did something I’ve never seen before as a consumer reporter. 

An investigation into this credit card dispute

In April 2024, a full seven months after the dispute was successfully concluded, Kessell was startled to find the $16,544 reappear on his credit card statement. Someone at the bank had inexplicably reopened the finalized chargeback. This time, the decision-maker had bizarrely found in favor of the permanently shuttered Vantage Travel.

Stunned by the turn of events, Kessell called his bank to find out what was going on.

His new, reopened case had been assigned to a specific agent who repeatedly told Kessell that the bank had learned the bankrupt company had been purchased and resurrected. As a result, Kessell was getting his refund from Vantage after all, he explained to his blindsided customer.

Of course, Kessell knew none of that was true. But six months later, with a hefty interest charge accruing, he was no closer to convincing the Nusenda agent of his confusion.

Frustrated by the lack of progress, Kessell let his daughter and son-in-law, Tom Gray, in on the battle he was fighting.  

Gray did some internet sleuthing and that’s when he came across an article I had written about credit card fraud involving the Vantage Travel bankruptcy. Having already suspected it, he now was certain that his father-in-law was involved in something similar.

He sent his request to Consumer Rescue hoping we could help his father-in-law. 

Consumer Rescue investigates: a strange credit card dispute

When Gray sent me his father-in-law’s paper trail, I was astounded by the inaccurate information the Nusenda agent stated as fact throughout. Things that he could have easily discovered to be untrue — like Kessell’s eligibility for a refund via the bankruptcy proceedings — he insisted was the route his customer needed to take to get his money back.

Repeatedly, the bank’s investigator claimed to be sympathetic to Kessell’s situation. But at the same time, he told him that there was nothing more that he could do. 

He even claimed to have had a “three-way call” with Vantage. During that conversation he said that he’d learned Kessell would receive an in-kind refund. As a result, the Nusenda agent had concluded that the $16,544 should be rebilled to Kessell’s credit card. 

In September 2024, 15-months after Kessell initially filed his valid credit card dispute — and one year after the successful conclusion, the agent now pronounced the case permanently closed.

In this alternative ending to the credit card dispute, Kessell would need to pay back the $16,544 — and the interest charges.

Visa deems this as being resolved since Vantage Explorations is making it right by issuing you a credit voucher. As we discussed with Vantage Explorations when we conducted a 3-way call, if you would like to get a cash credit applied back to your card you would need to file a request through the bankruptcy courts so your case can be reviewed by a judge to make that determination. 

I am sorry there is nothing more we can do based on the Visa consumer dispute rules this case was considered resolved.

Jeremy *****, Nusenda Card Services Dispute Manager

Huh? There is absolutely no way for any Vantage Travel bankruptcy victim to receive a “cash refund applied to their credit card” through the bankruptcy court. The bankruptcy estate has a $180 million debt to secured and nonsecure creditors. Additionally, it is unclear why Jeremy was having a three-way call with Vantage Explorations to discuss Kessell’s credit card dispute against a completely unaffiliated bankrupt company.

This case was getting more bizarre by the moment for Kessell.

Note: I’m redacting this agent’s last name because it is not my intention to publicly shame him (although I do hope his superiors retrain him on banking and consumer law). My intention is to point out how one particular, laser-focused agent with a complete misunderstanding of the Vantage Travel bankruptcy could create such an anxiety-provoking situation that lasted for six months for his customer.

A fatal flaw in the decision to reverse the credit card dispute

Although Kessell asked Jeremy to provide the contact information for the person at Visa he said made the decision, he did not. 

Reviewing this paper trail, my shenanigans meter was going off the chart. 

Visa adheres to the credit card dispute rules set by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). What Jeremy was claiming to be initiated by Visa couldn’t be true based on those rules. 

Within 90 days of getting your complaint, the issuer must resolve the dispute. 

Federal Trade Commission’s guidance about credit card disputes

There are no laws or regulations that would allow Nusenda to reopen a successful credit card dispute nearly one year later. Not to mention that Jeremy had a complete misunderstanding of the Vantage Travel bankruptcy. 

He appeared to be under the mistaken impression that Aurora Expeditions (the parent company of Vantage Explorations) had taken over the bankrupt company — and accepted its debt.

That error was a fatal flaw in Jeremy’s decision making about Kessell’s credit card dispute. 

Why didn’t the bank protect its customer from this bankruptcy?

The Fair Credit Billing Act should have fully protected Kessell in this situation. Vantage Deluxe World Travel sold him a cruise in March 2023 at a time when it was already deeply in debt.

In fact, at that time, the River Splendor, the river boat Kessell expected to travel on, had been sitting stationary for several months because of Vantage’s nonpayment of the leasing fees. The company that provided the crew to that ship had already sent them all home because Vantage hadn’t paid them — their contracts for the season broken. 

There was no chance that the $16,544 bucket list cruise Kessell paid for would operate. But he didn’t know and so he booked that trip with great expectations. 

The fact that he used a credit card should have provided all the protection he needed from the financial devastation of Vantage Travel’s bankruptcy. Instead, his bank seemed to be flexing power it shouldn’t have had over the fate of his $16,544.

Then I noticed another unusual aspect of this situation.

Stretto is a warehouse of documents for the Vantage Travel bankruptcy proceedings. All secured and unsecured creditors (claimants) will appear there. Kessell is not a claimant because he had received his money back via his credit card dispute for the money Vantage Travel owed to him. There is no way for him to join the claimant list now since the deadline to do so is long-since passed.

But what was curious to me about this situation is that Nusenda isn’t listed as a secured creditor of the Vantage Travel bankruptcy. That would suggest that the bank did successfully reverse the original credit card dispute and retrieved Kessell’s money. So where was the $16,544 going that Nusenda was reversing?

It was time to ask that Nusenda agent who he was protecting in this situation. It certainly wasn’t his customer Kessell.

Asking Nusenda: What is going on with this dispute?

If you’re a regular reader of this site then you know I’ve been following the collapse of Vantage Deluxe World Travel for years. I’ve also been fighting for its customers to receive the money the company owes them before, during and after its bankruptcy. (See: From despair to victory: How we recovered $93,500 in refunds for Vantage Travel victims.) Additionally, I’ve had conversations with the attorney for Vantage Travel and the trustee of the bankruptcy estate. I’ve attended all the court proceedings via Zoom and I think it is fair to say I know the details of the bankruptcy quite well.

Related: What Vantage Travel bankruptcy victims need to know before rejecting their credits

When I received the request for help, initially from Gray, Kessell’s son-in-law, there was no doubt in my mind that Kessell would get his money back. I hoped that we could correct Jeremy’s flawed credit card dispute investigation at the bank’s level. 

But if it was necessary, I prepared myself to take this case to the Vantage Travel bankruptcy estate, the FTC and the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau). 

However, I first wanted to give Nusenda and specifically Jeremy a chance to correct this tremendous error before pushing forward. 

Here’s an excerpt of my inquiry to Jeremy:

…I’ve never seen such an unusual consumer complaint before, but John and his family say that after Nusenda approved his valid credit card dispute of those charges in 2023 (as the Fair Credit Billing Act allows), somehow, your office recharged his card for the same amount in 2024 claiming that he received a credit voucher for the amount owed to him from another company. 

I want to tell you that I’ve uncovered a lot of shenanigans and fraud in the aftermath of this bankruptcy and reported it via the Boston Globe, Boston News, News Nation, and many other media outlets. This is yet another twist in this awful situation. Here are the facts about your customer John Kessell:

Judge Bostwick, presiding over the bankruptcy proceedings, set a deadline for Dec. 1, 2023 for Vantage Travel victims to file their 410 Notice of Claim. That date is long past, and your customer did not file a 410 because, on the deadline date, he had successfully received his refund via the credit card dispute.

Next, it appears your team misunderstood the bankruptcy outcome even if John was an official claimant. Aurora Expeditions bought the customer list of VDWT for $2 million. In return, it agreed to extend future travel credits to the victims on that list with restrictions. What is being offered is in no way a refund. 

Aurora created an entirely new company called Vantage Explorations with the intent to enter the US tour operator market. Vantage Explorations has zero affiliation with the bankrupt company. In order for victims to redeem their credits, they must spend at least the same amount of money with Aurora. So if your client had a $16,000 credit with Aurora (which he doesn’t, but IF he did), he would need to book a cruise that cost $32,000 to redeem his credit. So he would spend an additional $16,000 to get his “refund.”  

I noticed that in some of your correspondence, you’ve copied *** ****, a former executive-level employee of the bankrupt Vantage Deluxe World Travel. She, along with a handful of other employees that the bankruptcy displaced, were hired by Aurora to help launch this new company. But she misspoke if she told you that Aurora is providing refunds or “in kind” credits to John Kessell or anyone else on the bankruptcy list. I have had many conversations with ***** and I’m surprised if she told you that. I will contact her this morning to discuss what’s happening here. 

Finally, I’m curious: Under what law did your credit union reverse a successful credit card dispute nearly a year after the original resolution? In all my years as a consumer reporter, I’ve never seen such a thing. 

The bottom line is that John Kessell is an 88-year-old victim of a tour operator who took money from him at a time when it was already known to that company that they were $180 million in debt and would never operate the trip that was sold to him. That is well documented in the bankruptcy proceedings. 

Nusenda should protect this victim and return his money instead of returning it to the bankruptcy estate. I’m unclear as to why or how that happened. Vantage Explorations is NOT Vantage Deluxe World Travel.

Michelle Couch-Friedman, Consumer advocate

One more chance for Nusenda to correct its error

The next day, I grew impatient with Jeremy since he hadn’t responded. So I sent a follow up. I didn’t think it was fair to keep Kessell hanging on with this $16,544 debt accruing interest. It had already been six months since this outrageous situation began. I was ready to move on if that’s what Nusenda required.

Earlier in the day, I had already spoken to the person at Vantage Explorations that Jeremy seemed to suggest had provided him with the information that he used to make his decision about the credit card dispute reversal. She assured me that she had not spoken to Jeremy, so this was another oddity in this case.

Before I escalate this investigation above your team, I wanted to give you a second opportunity to respond. Please let me know if you intend to correct this mistake which is clearly based on your misunderstanding of the Vantage Travel bankruptcy “settlement” or if I should forge forward and upward. I did speak to *** **** at Vantage Explorations yesterday and she assured me that she did NOT tell you that Mr. Kessell was eligible for a refund OR an in kind credit. He is not entitled to that “settlement” because at the time of the deadline for filing a claim, Nusenda had already credited his account. 

There is certainly something wrong here and I hope it is a simple misunderstanding that can be quickly corrected. I do not believe there are any banking laws that allow you to recharge a customer over $16,544 nearly a year after informing him that the credit was permanent. This 88 year old man was a victim of Vantage Deluxe World Travel and now he’s becoming a victim of Nusenda’s misinterpretation of a bankruptcy case. 

To be clear: Mr. Kessell is not entitled to any credit with the new company. You re-charged him $16,544 on a premise that isn’t based in reality and I’m not sure where you put that money after you recharged him since I don’t think you can reapply it to the bankruptcy estate — that company no longer exists.

I can check with the attorney for the bankrupt company, Michael Goldberg OR the Trustee of the estate, Stephen Gray to see if Nusenda actually sent $16,544 back to the estate in April 2024.  This is all very strange, but the money should be returned to Mr. Kessell where it belongs. He should not be victimized by his own bank.

Thank you,

Michelle Couch-Friedman, Consumer reporter

And that seemed to have done the trick. Within a few hours, Kessell received a phone call from his bank. 

Nusenda admits a mistake… but blames it on a credit card processor

I love when a company gives a mea culpa and corrects a problem after reviewing all the data.  Unfortunately, that isn’t what happened here. 

Instead, faced with the overwhelming evidence that it made a massive error that could have cost its customer $16,544, Nusenda blamed the mistake on a credit card processor. 

Within hours of my last email to Jeremy on Oct.10, another Nusenda agent called Kessell and let him know this battle was over. The bank agreed to re-apply the $16,544 credit AND refund all the interest charges he accrued since April. 

However the most disappointing part of this case is that Nusenda blamed the entire situation on “procedural” errors with the credit card processor. There was no explanation as to what that error actually was, how it happened or why the bank didn’t identify this mistake for six months. 

That’s because as far as I can tell, the procedural errors were entirely with Nusenda and its lead investigator Jeremy.  But for Kessell, it doesn’t matter. He’s relieved to finally have this bizarre situation closed forever.

Our team feels the same. Even if a company blames its mistake on others, the end result is what’s most important. But I recommended that Kessell reconsider his banking choices.

The bottom line

Reversing a successful credit card dispute nearly a year after the initial dispute began is unheard of. I don’t know if Jeremy was attempting to make his bones by clawing back a giant chargeback for the bank, but certainly, based on banking and credit card law, one of his supervisors should have stopped his pursuit long before this case hit my desk. 

But no one did stop this anxiety-provoking situation for Kessell until his son-in-law reached out to the media. That’s inexcusable in my book. 

Here’s what you should know about credit card disputes so you don’t fall prey to similar shenanigans. 

1. The Federal Trade Commission’s 90-day resolution limit

If you file a credit card dispute, your bank must give you a final resolution within 90 days. That gives the merchant a chance to respond and you to offer any additional evidence. At the end of those 90 days, the bank must permanently resolve the credit card dispute. There are no regulations that allow a bank to reopen your case the next year or even the next day. 

2. File a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

If your bank refuses to conclude your credit card dispute within 90 days OR reopens it after a successful resolution, you can file a complaint with the CFPB. 

3. Ask Consumer Rescue to defend you

My team and I love to investigate and fix consumer problems. We respond to every request for help we receive within 24-hours. Our help is fast, friendly and, best of all, FREE!   (Michelle Couch-Friedman, Consumer Rescue)