Credit cards: billing inquiries.

Existing state and federal law regulates the provision of credit and the use of credit cards. The Song-Beverly Credit Card Act of 1971 generally regulates credit card transactions and includes definitions of terms used in this law. Under existing law, a credit card issuer that fails to give a timely response to an inquiry of a cardholder concerning any debit or credit applicable to an obligation incurred through the use of a credit card is not entitled to specified interest, finance charges, service charges, or other charges thereon. Existing law defines "inquiry" as a writing mailed to the card issuer that is received by the card issuer no later than 60 days after the card issuer transmitted the first periodic statement with the alleged billing error, as specified. This bill would increase the amount of time a credit cardholder is allowed to dispute a billing error, by increasing the current 60 days to one year.