Returning an Item Purchased with a Credit Card Account You've Closed

Photo: Andres Rueda


What happens when you return something that you purchased with a credit card account that you closed?

I used to think that I had no choice but to get store credit, but I recently tried another strategy. I took my canceled Chase credit card to the store with me to return an item. I was curious to see if the refund would go through even though the account was closed--and it did. The account had been closed for two months.

While it was a little unnerving to walk out of a store without the item I returned and without any way of accessing the refund money, I knew I had my receipt as proof of the transaction and I could send a copy of it with a letter to the credit card company if necessary to get my money back.

After two to three months of waiting, I received a refund check in the mail from the credit card company. It took quite a long time to get my money back, and maybe I could have sped up the process by contacting Chase, but I didn't. Despite the long wait, I was happy to have been able to return the unwanted item and get a cash refund rather than keeping something I didn't want or getting a store credit that would probably have taken me forever to use.