Hi all,
I am stuck on a customer who came to the bank to dispute 4 transactions.
2 transactions in the middle of December and 2 transactions in the middle of January.
Customer stated they only knew of these charges once their debit card declined, alerting the customer to check their account. Customer saw these unauthorized transactions and reported them.
However, customer stated "I don't know how long these have been coming out of my account."
The customer gets monthly statements usually on the 6th of every month.

The 4 transactions are reoccurring Google charges with a debit card (aka, two Google charges every month).
Do we need to follow the 60 day statement rule of when these charges first occured, which goes back to January 2024?
Do we only work with the 4 transactions the customer signed for, considering the customer "didn't have time" to review previous statements with bank personnel?

I'm really stuck on what timelines we follow and how we will offer provisional credit, including overdraft fees that accrued.

I've never dealt with a situation like this, and I'm sure there will be more to come.
Any guidance is appreciated,

Thank you

Sorry - I think I posted this in the wrong forum.

If your customer states none of these charges are authorized, I would begin with Jan 2024. Depending on when the transactions post will determine which statement cycle you're going to use to calculate liability. If the transaction appears on the January 6 statement, count forward 60 days from Jan 6. All transaction within that time period, plus associated OD fees will need to be returned. If the first transaction doesn't appear until the Feb 6 statement, then you'll use that date to begin your 60 day count. All transactions occurring outside of the 60 day window are his liability under Reg E.

You may be able to file chargebacks on recent transactions; however, they likely do not fall under the "reasonable care" standard of Visa or MC.

Thanks for the input, Burkemi!


I've begun the 60 day count on the customer's Jan. 6 statement up to March 6 statement.
It totals 3 Google transactions and one OD fee; however, the OD would have occurred regardless of if the Google charge passed through or not, so I am assuming we can just leave that be.

I guess now is the liability.
Do the 60 day statement disputes receive $50 liability?
Or is the bank responsible for these 3 Google charges in full?

I used a BankersOnline Reg E Calc/Liability Tool, and the 60 Day Statement portion of the tool is deducting $50 in liability.
Customer had possession of the access device used on these reoccurring purchases, so can liability play into this, if the card wasn't lost or stolen?

1005.6(b)(1) - (2) only apply if an accepted access device was used. Since that is not the case here, you would follow the 1005.6(b)(3) based on the periodic statement and the $50 / $500 tiers would not apply.

Have you checked with the customer to see if the charges beginning in January 2024 are also unauthorized? If so, then the notice of error would not be timely since we are way beyond 60 days from the transmittal of the January statement.

Now, if the notice of error was not timely, note that 1005.11(c) does not apply so you do not have to provide provisional credit, and you do not have to complete your investigation in 45/90 days. As stated in the commentary of that section, you must still follow 1005.6(b) if you conclude the transactions are unauthorized.

If this is the case, the bank and the charges are unauthorized, the bank would likely be liable for changes from January 2024 - March 2024, and the customer liable for everything else. As noted by burkemi, you could attempt chargebacks on the more recent transactions to see if you can gather information to determine if these are truly unauthorized or not. If you have any chargeback recoveries, you must pass these along to the customer as well. Visa/Mastercard do not allow you to keep chargeback proceeds to offset against other transactions.

Thanks Brian!
In my head, the "Timely Notice" was when the customer had first recognized the transactions on their account, to which the customer reported to the bank on the same day.
I understand now, that in this situation, "Timely Notice" would have referred to the 60-day time period of the first statement showing the first unauthorized transaction.

We will be disputing a recent charge to conclude whether it was authorized by our customer or not.

Thanks for the help y'all!