Right?? I mean again, I could have gotten a refund in 48 hours, per the smallprint... But I noticed it about ~3 months too late, while writing about this.
But it's okay. Getting those $5 back would make Photobucket look slightly better in my mind, and I don't want that.
You can absolutely do a chargeback months later. This is fraud, and credit card companies are usually very willing to address that! Typically they'll put the onus on Photobucket to demonstrate that you received the service you paid for, and they won't be able to do that in your case.
I'm honestly genuinely surprised that you care so much about $5 ($3 in 2006 money, when people last used photobucket) that you wrote this article over it, but cared so little to just ask for the refund 15 seconds after finding the account was unused.
You can charge back months after. Best to ask for refund first (as in now, despite their legally irrelevant time limit) as the CC would expect you to do that first.