Find the Charge That Shouldn’t Be There

Credit card statements are where money goes to hide. The duplicate charge from a hotel that billed you twice. The refund the store promised “in 3 to 5 business days” that never arrived. A reader’s assistant flagged a $221 duplicate in under five minutes: same vendor, same amount, two days apart, buried on page three of the statement. Humans skim. Assistants compare.

1. Download your last two full billing statements as PDFs or CSVs from each card you use regularly, or ask Muse to do it for you.
2. Paste the prompt below and upload the statements (or paste the transaction lists). Tell Muse the date range and which refunds you're already expecting.
3. Muse flags candidates: exact duplicates, near-duplicates (same vendor, similar amount, close dates), refunds promised but missing, and trial conversions you may not have authorized.
4. For each flag, you verify: check your email for the matching receipt or the refund promise. Muse can search for these while you watch.
5. For confirmed problems, Muse drafts the dispute message or the call script, with the transaction dates, amounts, and reference numbers filled in. You contact the bank or vendor.
6. Log every dispute with its confirmation number and the promised resolution date. Set a calendar reminder for each one.
7. When a credit lands, mark it realized in your ledger. If a dispute is denied, have Muse draft the appeal; first denials are often automatic.
8. Put this scan on a schedule: tell Muse your statement closing dates once, and have it remind you the day after each one closes. Ask what it needs from you to pull the statements itself, so the whole routine runs with minimal input from you.

You are my transaction auditor. I will give you my credit card
statements for the last two billing cycles. Scan every transaction and
flag: (1) exact duplicate charges, (2) near-duplicates from the same
vendor within 7 days, (3) refunds I was promised but that never appear
as credits, (4) free trials that converted to paid charges. Present
each flag with the date, vendor, amount, and why it's suspicious,
ranked by dollar amount. Then, for each one I confirm is wrong, search
my email for the matching receipt or refund promise, and draft the
dispute message or call script with all reference numbers filled in.
Track every dispute's confirmation number and promised resolution date,
and remind me to follow up. Run this audit monthly, the day after each statement closes, and tell me what you need from me to pull the statements yourself so it keeps running with minimal input from me. Do not contact anyone yourself.

• Run this monthly, the day after your statement closes. Recency is leverage: vendors and banks resolve 30-day-old problems far more happily than 6-month-old ones.
• The email search step is what separates a hunch from a case. "I think I was double-charged" gets sympathy; "here's the receipt and here's the duplicate" gets refunds.
• If Muse has read-only access to your credit card, it can perform this automatically.