 TITLE: How Do Credit Card Refunds Work? CONTENT: What Is a Credit Card Refund?\n-----------------------------\nTo understand how credit card refunds work, it's important to know how credit card purchases work. There are two types of companies involved in every credit card transaction: credit card issuers and credit card networks.\n*   **Credit card issuers**: The financial institutions that provide credit cards and lend cardholders the money they need to make purchases with the cards.\n*   **Credit card networks**: Companies that process these transactions, electronically moving the money from the credit card issuer to the merchant and vice versa.\nWhen you buy something with a credit card, the merchant requests payment from the credit card issuer, not from you directly. The card issuer pays the merchant and adds the purchase amount to your account balance. You then pay the credit card issuer.\nReturning a purchase works the same way, but in reverse. When a retailer issues a refund, the money doesn't go directly to you. (This is why most merchants won't give you a cash refund for a purchase made with a credit card.) Instead, they ask your credit card issuer to credit your account for the returned amount. The card issuer then posts the credit to your account. END