We had a customer dispute a merchant charge spanning two different cards due to the Target breech. He claimed the merchant didn't correct his middle initial for an online business service. The first one was denied by Visa and the CSR took that to mean both were denied and she sent the denial and reversal of provisional credit letter to the customer. In looking over some other disputes, she noticed a credit for the subsequent one shown as a "pre-arb accepted" - when she called our third party vendor, they stated the merchant credited one of them as they stated they (the vendor) would take legal action. (?) I'm *very* new to this and I know that once a final resolution has been determined and letter sent to notify the customer of the outcome of your investigation, that it's supposed to be case closed ... but if we then are credited for part of the dispute, we must forward that on to the customer, correct? How does one word that in a letter?

You assume correctly. You can't reopen a final determination to take money back from a consumer, but you can provide a credit or additional credit if it comes from a merchant.

"Dear cardholder,

"After we finalized our investigation on your recent claim involving XYZ Inc., we received a refund from the merchant in the amount of $_____. We are therefore crediting your account in that amount. You may consider that credit final.

"We at SuperBank appreciate the opportunity to be of service."