The single most common misunderstanding we meet: there is no federal right to change your mind about an online purchase. Americans have strong protections, but they sit in different places than Europeans expect.
The FTC rule that gives a three-day right to cancel applies to sales made somewhere other than the seller's normal place of business: at the door, at a temporary stand, in a hotel room. It does not apply to buying from a website. A shop that refuses a change-of-mind return online is usually within its rights, and its published returns policy is what governs.
| Instrument | What it gives |
|---|---|
| FTC Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule | The seller must ship within the time it promised, or within thirty days if it promised nothing. If it cannot, it has to offer the buyer a choice between waiting and a prompt refund. Silence is not an option. |
| Fair Credit Billing Act | The right to dispute a billing error on a credit card account in writing, within sixty days of the statement carrying it. The issuer must investigate and may not demand payment of the disputed amount meanwhile. |
| Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act | Governs written warranties on consumer products: what they must disclose and what a full warranty has to deliver. It does not create a warranty where none was given. |
There is deliberately no federal equivalent of the European conformity guarantee. What a product must be is largely a matter of state law and of the warranty the seller chose to give.
In practice the payment network does more work than any statute. A credit card chargeback for goods not received or not as described is faster than any legal route, costs nothing, and the deadlines are set by the card scheme rather than by law. For a consumer who paid by card, that is the first move and often the last one needed.
Debit cards are weaker. The Electronic Fund Transfer Act and Regulation E cover unauthorised transfers, which is not the same as a dispute with a merchant who did charge you but failed to deliver.
Every state has an unfair or deceptive acts and practices statute, and several are considerably stronger than anything federal. Many allow a consumer to recover multiple damages and legal costs, which changes the arithmetic for a seller deciding whether to argue. Each state attorney general runs a consumer division that takes complaints, and a pattern of them attracts attention in a way a single refund never does.
Small claims courts sit at county level. Limits vary widely by state, the procedure is designed to be used without a lawyer, and filing fees are low. For a domestic US consumer with a traceable seller this is a realistic route.
A European consumer who bought from a US seller has no European rights to invoke. What remains is the contract, the FTC rule on shipping, the card scheme, the state attorney general and the marketplace the sale ran through. We say honestly when none of those is likely to produce money, because with a seller that has no traceable entity and took payment by bank transfer, usually none of them will.
The route runs through the card scheme and the state regulator, not through European law. We will say up front whether it is worth pursuing.