I work in the merchant services field and I will try to point you in the right direction. First and foremost you have to understand how credit cards work. There are 3 main players. One being the company that you purchase from, since this is a gambling website I can tell you right away this is a waste of time. All these companies are based out of the country and are not subject US law. Second is the merchant processing company. This are the people that actually handle the transactions. Once again since the site is a gambling site I am positive they are with a high risk provider based out side the US.No real recourse there. The last is the issuing bank, this is the bank that actually issued the card. There is a pretty good chance they are US based and you best bet. Now to give you a little understanding on how all this works in the simplest way possible.

When you son went online and went to the site he entered the CC info. That info is then sent from the website to the processing company. The processing company then sends the info to the issuing bank(your CC company). The issuing bank then check the MCC code and verifies the funds are available. If the funds are available they send the funds back to the processing company, which in turn send the funds back to the website owner. That being said, what is a MCC code.

When a merchant processing company sets up a client (in this case the gambling site) they have to disclose what type of business they are. This is done by a MCC code. There is an MCC code for every type of business. This code tells the issuing bank what type of company is trying to get funds.

Now to things could have happened. 1 the processing company lied and gave them a different MCC code which is possible but not likely. The other is the bank new about it and let it go through anyway.

Now after all that here is your answer. Based on the The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 a cc company is not violating US law. The law states it is illegal to receive funds not send funds. So based on this law the only person that is liable is the website. However the law was changed again in 2007. Now i am not a lawyer but in

Section 5364 mandates that the Federal Reserve Board and the Secretary of the Treasury issue "appropriate" regulations designed to identify and block the transfer of funds to the online gambling operators from U.S. financial institutions. The regulators are given nine months to put these regulations in place. Once the regulations are issued U.S. financial institutions will be required to comply with them.

Now hear is where it get really tricky. Within the last month or so there is a lot of talk about having this billed removed . The president and so other people are stating this bill is hurting our relationship with Europe and want to ax it.

So after all this I would recommend this. First read up on the law and understand it for yourself also contact your CC company and ask them to send you a copy of the terms and agreement of the card(DO NOT MENTION ANYTHING TO THEM ABOUT THIS YET). Find out what website he was on and do a quick search of who they are. May give you a little insight on where they are. Then see if you can find out any if on your cc statement, as far as where you funds went, if there is a phone number of the company, or anything else. You might get lucky and find out the bank the money was sent to is in the US but I doubt it. Next I would call your CC company and put a claim. Be careful how you word this claim. I would not state this is fraud. I would simply claim that you do not recall making these transactions. The good thing is that since most of these companies are outside the country it is harder for the bank to verify the funds. I will not boar you with the details and how this works but it is you best bet. If after that they still want you to pay I would call up the bank and state you found out this was done on a gambling website and you want to know why they allowed the transaction and maybe get in touch with a supervisor and state some case law. If all else fails contact a lawyer and just simple ask I believe I have case against my bank. They more than likely will tell you yes or no.

One last item I do agree with the previous answer that you son has to own up. However I don't believe you should be liable for his mistakes. Try to get this fixed and the remove the charges but regardless of the outcome I still would make him pay for the bill. Hope this helps

So I would just calm down and know that your payment will be taken care of in due time.

You should contact me at mbader@prairieprocessing.com

I could give you several ideas or you could give my contact information to the group

The merchant will submit the name to the credit card company for verification. As long as the credit card company doesn't have the name wrong, it should work.