Welcome to the freeboards, Amber18!

Lots of us have stories about losing money to scammers and problem-plagued OP's before coming to DB. I lost a small fortune to e-mail scammers, then I found DB, and the information I get here has saved me from making any more big mistakes.

To answer your question, I think a charge-back is exactly what you are doing, disputing the charges with your CC company. When I have had to do this, I phoned the CC company and the $ was immediately credited "pending resolution" to my CC. I had to sign a letter the CC issuing bank sent me, confirming the nature of the dispute. When the offending OP could not demonstrate that they had provided goods or services for the amount in question, the money was permanently credited to my card.

I think it's more difficult to do this with a debit card. I do not carry a debit card, as there is very little protection when you use one (or lose one).

Hope this helps.