Merchant bankrupt or not delivering: card recourse

Yes, in principle. If you paid with a Visa, Mastercard or American Express card, an order that never arrived can be disputed with your issuer, even when the merchant is bankrupt or its website has vanished. The refund is not automatic, and the date decides everything: in Belgium the window is counted in months, not years.

A Bancontact payment or a bank transfer does not follow this path.

Can I get a refund if the merchant does not deliver?

Yes, through the card, as long as you are within your issuer's deadline. The mechanism is called chargeback: your bank asks the merchant's bank to take back the money for an order that was not fulfilled. The European Consumer Centre Belgium expressly lists the undelivered parcel and the seller gone bankrupt, for Visa, Mastercard and American Express cards.

The full mechanism (grounds, form, recourse) is described in the article on chargeback in Belgium. This one deals with the specific case of the merchant who stops delivering, because the calendar works against you there.

In the files I handled, the merchant's bankruptcy was almost never the reason for a refusal. The reason was the date: the cardholder had let the window pass while hoping the order would still turn up.

How long does the merchant have to deliver, and when should I dispute?

Thirty days. Article VI.43 of the Code of Economic Law (Book VI, on market practices and consumer protection) requires the business to fulfil the order and deliver at the latest 30 days after the contract is concluded, unless agreed otherwise. After that, you give it an extra deadline in writing. If that is not met, you can cancel and demand back the sums already paid, without undue delay.

The figure to keep in mind: the card dispute itself runs on 3 months from the transaction, according to the European Consumer Centre. The two clocks are not synchronised, and nobody tells you that when you order.

This calendar is my own calculation from those two sources, not a rule written out as such. But it shows the essential point: after the written notice, you have about 45 days left to file the dispute. On a pre-order with delivery announced at 60 days, the 3-month window closes 30 days after the promised date.

So dispute as soon as the extra deadline expires, without waiting for the last day.

The merchant is bankrupt or its site has closed: what changes?

Little for the dispute, a lot for everything else. A Test-Achats file on the bankrupt retailer, dated 20 May 2020, points out that delivery is very unlikely: the trustee sells the assets and shares the proceeds among creditors.

Your deposit becomes an unsecured claim. It ranks behind the tax office, the social security office (ONSS) and mortgage lenders, and filing yours first gives no advantage. Filing is free, online on Regsol (the central register for insolvency, an account is required) or directly with the trustee.

The trustee has 15 days, from your request, to decide whether to carry out or cancel the contract, according to the same source.

A site that closes without any published bankruptcy is the blurriest case. No trustee, no one to talk to, sometimes a foreign company. There, the card is your only real lever.

In a file of this kind, the issuer looks first at the order date, then at the date of the bankruptcy judgment or of the site's closure. An order placed before the bankruptcy is easy to defend. An order placed on a site already at a standstill is much harder.

What evidence should I gather before disputing?

Dated documents. Gather, in this order:

• the order confirmation with its amount and date;
• the line of the card statement showing the debit;
• the written follow-up to the merchant, with proof it was sent (an email that bounced counts);
• the written notice with an extra deadline, if the merchant was still answering;
• screenshots of the parcel tracking or of the vanished website;
• the published bankruptcy notice, if there is one.

A file without dates reaches the issuer with three lines of narrative, and comes back with a request for more. That back and forth eats a precious part of a window that does not exceed 90 days.

Can I recover a Bancontact payment or a bank transfer?

Not through chargeback. Test-Achats says it plainly: a dispute is possible with Visa, Mastercard, American Express or PayPal, not with Bancontact. A transfer you validated yourself cannot be pulled back in the same way either.

Three routes remain. A written notice based on Article VI.43. A creditor's claim, if bankruptcy is declared. And, for a clearly abusive practice, a report to the FPS Economy contact point. None of the three guarantees a refund, and the second is settled in years, not weeks.

That is why, for any purchase from an unknown merchant, I advise paying by card rather than Bancontact. It is not advice on which card to pick: it is advice on recourse.

How much does waiting cost when the line stays on the card?

Less than losing the money, but not nothing. Until the bank posts a credit, the disputed line stays on your statement. In the files I handled, cardholders almost never asked about interest, although it is settled in one line: check in your issuer's terms whether the disputed amount is suspended or not.

If the line moves onto a carried balance, the order of magnitude is simple to calculate. For a EUR 600 order left 4 months on the credit line, at the APR and without compounding:

Over twelve months, that is a EUR 19 gap in annual fee in Beobank's favour. But the carried balance costs EUR 2.50 more per month at Beobank: the advantage reverses after about eight months. A card's price is judged on both, not on the annual fee alone.

The brochure does not mention it, but the point matters: a dispute does not erase your obligation to pay on the direct debit date until the issuer has confirmed otherwise in writing. If the amount puts you in difficulty, speak early to an accredited debt mediation service or to the CPAS (the public social welfare centre). This article does not replace personal advice.

My dispute was refused: what now?

Write, date it, ask for the exact reason. The complaint goes to the issuer's complaints department, not to the branch adviser, with the list of documents already sent.

If the answer does not satisfy you, or does not arrive within a reasonable time (one month in principle), Ombudsfin, the Belgian financial sector mediator, examines the file free of charge, provided less than a year has passed since your complaint to the bank. Of the 2,164 cases handled in 2025, 36% were found justified, according to BX1's report. Its opinion does not bind the bank, but it carries weight.

A refusal for "date exceeded" is rarely contested. A refusal for "insufficient proof" almost always is: complete the file, follow up, keep the trail.

For a hacked card rather than an undelivered purchase, the regime is different: see the article on the bank that refuses to refund fraud. To compare cards on what they really cost, the ranking of Belgian credit cards, the comparison tool and the selection guide start from the same checked rates.

Sources, accessed on 5 October 2026. 30-day delivery deadline, extra deadline, cancellation and refund: Article VI.43 of the Code of Economic Law, as summarised by Actualités du droit belge and by the CEC Belgium brochure. Card dispute within 3 months of the transaction: European Consumer Centre Belgium. Merchant bankruptcy, Regsol, trustee, Bancontact: Test-Achats, 20 May 2020 and Regsol. Reporting an abusive practice: Contact point, FPS Economy. Admissibility of a complaint: Ombudsfin. Ombudsfin 2025 figures: BX1, 11 May 2026. Annual fees and APR checked on 3 September 2026 on the public rate pages of Beobank and Argenta. No link in this article is paid for.