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Last reviewed October 8, 2026 by Jackson McMillan, Florida attorney
How the fake fraud department call works
The script varies, but the shape stays the same. Someone posing as your bank's fraud team says a stranger is trying to use your card or get into your account. To "block" it, they need you to confirm a one-time passcode, the short code your bank texts before it lets anyone sign in or approve a new payment. It feels routine, so you read it back. With that code, the scammer gets into your online banking, sets up new Zelle payments, and sends your money out in a few fast transfers.
Then comes the second blow. You call the real bank, and a representative says the transfers were "authorized" because they came from your account using your code. It's easy to hear that and give up. Don't, at least not before someone checks the bank's answer against the rules it has to follow.
The line federal law draws: who pressed send
The Electronic Fund Transfer Act is the federal law that protects money moving electronically out of a consumer account, including debit card charges, ATM withdrawals, automatic debits, and Zelle payments. Regulation E is the detailed rulebook that carries it out. Under those rules, a transfer counts as unauthorized if another person started it, without real permission from you, and you got nothing from it.
The official interpretation of Regulation E is direct about your situation: when someone gets your card, PIN, login, or code from you through fraud, the transfers that person makes are unauthorized. Reading a code aloud to an impostor doesn't hand over your permission. Carelessness doesn't change the answer either, because negligence can't be used to increase your share of the loss.
Here is the honest other side. If the caller instead talked you into opening your banking app and sending the money yourself, for example to a "safe account," federal law generally does not treat that payment as unauthorized, and no federal rule requires your bank to refund it. Some banks have voluntary reimbursement policies for certain scams, so ask. Some calls involve both kinds of transfers. A scammer may quietly shift money from your savings into checking before pressuring you to send it on, and that first move can be unauthorized even if the last one isn't. Each transfer gets judged on its own facts, so the details of how the money moved decide your case.
Before you answer another "bank" call or sign anything the bank mails you, let me look at the transfer history, the texts, and the bank's response so you know which transfers the law covers.
What your bank has to do once you report it
Reporting the fraud starts deadlines the bank must meet. A phone call counts as notice. The bank may ask you to confirm in writing within 10 business days, but it can't put the investigation on hold while it waits for your letter.
- A decision within 10 business days. If the bank wants more time, it must provisionally credit the disputed amount to your account within those 10 business days, and then it can take up to 45 days.
- A real investigation. When the money moved through a network your bank has an agreement with, such as Zelle, a look at the bank's own records alone is not enough.
- The burden of proof stays with the bank. If it claims you authorized the transfers, it has to show that.
- Reasons in writing if it says no, sent within 3 business days after it finishes, plus copies of the documents it relied on if you ask.
File the claim with your bank, not with Zelle. The bank that holds your account has these duties, even if a representative tells you Zelle payments are final. My page on Zelle, Cash App, and Venmo fraud covers how the rules apply to each app, and my guide to disputing an unauthorized bank transfer walks through the process with a sample letter.
Zelle fraud claims in Tampa and Hillsborough County
Whether you live in South Tampa, Seminole Heights, Ybor City, the Channel District, Westshore, New Tampa, Brandon, Riverview, or anywhere else around Tampa Bay, your rights against the bank are the same, and so is the process for challenging a denial. Students and staff at the University of South Florida's main campus get the same protection.
I work out of Tampa, and bank and payment app fraud cases are a core part of what I do. When someone in Hillsborough County or elsewhere in Tampa Bay sends me one of these cases, I line up the statements and text messages against the bank's deadlines, separate the transfers the scammer made from any you were pressured into making, and request the documents the bank used to deny the claim. If a lawsuit makes sense, the federal law allows filing in federal or state court, and the state courts in Hillsborough County are part of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit.
If the same scammer opened accounts in your name, my guide to fixing credit report errors in Tampa covers the next step. And if a landlord is sitting on your security deposit while you sort all this out, here's how Tampa renters get a deposit back.
What a Zelle fraud case in Tampa can be worth
When a bank breaks the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, the law lets you recover your actual damages, starting with the money taken, and additional statutory damages of $100 to $1,000. Actual damages can be tripled if the bank failed to provisionally recredit your account within 10 days and also either skipped a good faith investigation or lacked any reasonable basis to believe there was no error. Tripling is also available when a bank knowingly and willfully decides there was no error even though the evidence couldn't reasonably support that conclusion.
The same law makes a bank that loses responsible for the consumer's reasonable attorney's fees and costs, which is what makes a claim over a few thousand dollars practical to pursue. You don't pay me unless you win. I take these cases on contingency: no attorney's fees and no case costs owed to me unless you recover money. If a case is lost, a court can sometimes order the losing side to pay the other side's court costs, and some Florida laws, including the security deposit and deceptive practices statutes, also let the winner recover attorney's fees from the loser. I explain that risk before anything is filed, and every term is in a written agreement before you sign.
Deadlines: report today, sue within a year
- Today: report every transfer you didn't make. How quickly you report can affect how much of the loss the bank is allowed to put on you.
- Within 60 days of the bank sending the first statement that lists the transfers: this is the window that triggers the bank's formal investigation deadlines.
- Within 1 year: the general deadline to sue under the federal law. When a bank mishandles your claim, the year can run from the bank's own failure, like a missed deadline, rather than from the day of the call. Get advice early.
What to do today in Tampa
- Call your bank using the number on the back of your card or inside its official app, never a number from a text or a callback, and report every transfer you didn't make.
- Lock down online banking: new password, new security questions, and remove any Zelle recipients or devices you don't recognize.
- Write down the call while it's fresh: the time, the number that called, what the caller said, and what you read back. Screenshot the code texts.
- Confirm your report in writing to the bank's error-dispute address and keep proof of when you sent it. A bank that asks for written confirmation and doesn't get it within 10 business days can skip the provisional credit.
- Ignore anyone who calls back offering to "recover" the money for a fee.
- Send it to me. Start your free case review and upload your statements, the texts, and any letter from the bank. I'll tell you which transfers the law covers and what I would do next.