Regulation E error resolution · FloridaThe bank put the money back, then took it out again. Here is what it owed you first.

Last reviewed October 8, 2026 by Jackson McMillan, Florida attorney

Short answer: A bank may reverse a provisional credit after finding no error, but it must notify you of the date and amount, honor your checks and preauthorized debits for 5 business days, explain its findings in writing, and hand over the documents it relied on if you ask. A reversal built on a thin investigation can be challenged.

What is provisional credit, in plain words?

Provisional credit is a temporary refund. When you report an unauthorized transfer and your bank needs more than 10 business days to investigate, Regulation E requires it to put the disputed amount back in your account within those 10 business days so you can use the money while the investigation continues. It stays yours unless the bank finds no error.

The rule comes from the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA), the federal law covering debit card purchases, ATM withdrawals, ACH debits, and online or app transfers out of a consumer's bank account, and from Regulation E, the regulation that puts the law into step-by-step duties. When you tell your bank about an error within 60 days after it sent the statement showing the problem, the error-resolution rules switch on (12 C.F.R. § 1005.11(b)).

From there the bank has a choice. It can finish its investigation within 10 business days and tell you the result. Or, if it wants more time, it must provisionally credit your account for the disputed amount, including interest where your account earns it, within those 10 business days, and then it gets up to 45 days in total (§ 1005.11(c)(1), (2)). The bank has to tell you the amount and the date of the credit and give you full use of the funds. "Provisional" simply means the credit can be taken back if the investigation concludes there was no error.

A few wrinkles. For an account opened within 30 days before the transfer, the bank gets 20 business days instead of 10 to decide or credit. For new accounts, point-of-sale debit card purchases, and transfers started outside the United States, the outer limit is 90 days rather than 45 (§ 1005.11(c)(3)). In an unauthorized-transfer claim where the $50 liability tier applies, the bank may hold back up to $50 of the provisional credit (§ 1005.11(c)(2)(i)). And if you reported by phone, the bank asked you to confirm in writing within 10 business days, and you didn't, it is allowed to skip the provisional credit, though it still has to investigate and may not stall while waiting for your letter.

The bank also may not charge you a fee for looking into your claim, no matter how it comes out.

Why did the bank take back my provisional credit?

A bank reverses a provisional credit when its investigation concludes there was no error. In a fraud claim, that means it decided the transfer was authorized or that you're liable for it. The letter usually points to your PIN, your device, your login, past dealings with the payee, or a fraud score.

Those are starting points for an investigation, not the end of one. Here is what "no error found" usually rests on:

• "The transaction was authenticated." A correct PIN, password, or one-time code proves that whoever made the transfer had your credentials. A thief holding your card and PIN, or a scammer you were tricked into reading a code to, produces the same record you would.
• "It came from your device or your usual location." A stolen phone and a remote-access scam both do too.
• "You've done business with this payee before." A prior relationship doesn't authorize a new transaction. Federal supervisory reports have faulted denials that lean on past dealings.
• "The payee confirmed the transaction was valid." The payee is the party that received the money. Taking its word without more is not an investigation of your claim.
• "The fraud systems did not flag it." An automated score is a tool. Published federal enforcement orders have treated denials that consist of a model output and a form letter as unreasonable.
• "Your written confirmation was not received." That can excuse the provisional credit. It does not excuse the investigation or the written explanation.
• "You reported too late." Reporting more than 60 days after the statement can shift later transfers onto you, if the bank proves a timely report would have stopped them. It does not make the first transfers authorized.

Timing can be its own problem. If the reversal arrived more than 45 days after your report (90 in the extended cases), the bank also missed its deadline to complete the investigation, which is a separate violation of the regulation.

What must the bank do when it reverses a provisional credit?

Regulation E imposes four duties. The bank must notify you of the reversal's date and amount. It must say it will honor checks and preauthorized debits for 5 business days, and do so without overdraft charges. It must explain its findings in writing and tell you about your right to the documents it relied on.

Taking those in order. First, when the bank debits the provisionally credited amount, it must notify you of the date and the amount of that debit (12 C.F.R. § 1005.11(d)(2)(i)). Money that silently disappears from your balance, with no notice at all, does not meet this rule. Ask for the notice in writing if you only got a phone call, and save whatever you received.

Second, the bank must tell you that it will honor checks, drafts, and similar items payable to third parties, as well as preauthorized transfers from your account, for 5 business days after that notice, and it must do so without charging you an overdraft fee as a result (§ 1005.11(d)(2)(ii)). The bank only has to honor items it would have paid had the credit never been reversed, but within that limit the rule is firm. If your rent check or car payment bounced in the days after the reversal, or you were charged overdraft fees for items that cleared, those events may themselves violate the regulation.

Third, within 3 business days after finishing the investigation, the bank must report its results to you, and when the result is "no error," the report must include a written explanation of the bank's findings (§ 1005.11(c)(1), (d)(1)). "Findings" means what the bank actually determined and why, not a sentence announcing that the case is closed.

Fourth, the same written report must tell you that you have the right to request copies of the documents the bank relied on in making its decision, and once you ask, the bank must provide them promptly and in a form you can understand (§ 1005.11(d)(1)).

Measure your letter against those four. A one-paragraph form letter that announces a reversal, gives no reasons, and never mentions documents has missed at least two of them.

How do I demand the documents the bank relied on?

Send a short written request to the error-resolution address in your account agreement, cite Regulation E, and ask for every document the bank relied on in deciding there was no error. The bank must provide them promptly and in a form you can understand. Keep a copy and proof of delivery, because the response, or the silence, becomes evidence.

Be specific about what you want. Ask for the written explanation of findings if you never received one. Ask for the transaction records showing the device, location, and authentication method for each disputed transfer. Ask for any statement the payee or merchant gave the bank, any records the bank obtained from the payment network, the output of any fraud-detection tool it relied on, the investigator's notes, and the dates the investigation was opened and closed. If the bank relied on it, you're entitled to it.

Two features of the regulation help here. A consumer's request for documentation or clarification, including a request made to figure out whether an error occurred, is itself listed as a type of "error" the bank must handle under the same procedures (12 C.F.R. § 1005.11(a)(1)(vii)). And while a bank that fully complied need not reinvestigate the same claim just because you assert it again, a documentation request is the exception the regulation carves out (§ 1005.11(e)). What the documents reveal can also lead to a new review.

The file often shows how little happened: a review that lasted minutes, a single automated check, no contact with the payment network, no thought about how the credentials were obtained. Sometimes it shows the opposite and the bank's conclusion holds up. Either way you'll know before deciding whether to pursue a claim.

My dispute guide includes a notice-of-error letter you can adapt; swap in a paragraph requesting the documents and referencing the date of the denial.

Can I fight a "no error found" decision?

Yes. The bank's decision is not a court ruling, and under the EFTA the bank carries the burden of proving the transfer was authorized or that you're liable for it. If the documents show the investigation didn't reach the records the regulation requires, or the conclusion couldn't reasonably be drawn from the evidence, you may have a claim.

The burden of proof belongs to the bank by statute. In any action involving a consumer's liability for an unauthorized transfer, the bank must show that the transfer was authorized or that the conditions for liability were met (15 U.S.C. § 1693g(b)). A reversal letter flips that in practice, treating you as the one who must prove fraud. The law does not.

The scope of the investigation is also set by regulation. A bank may limit its review to its own records only when it has no agreement with a third party for the type of transfer at issue. Where it does, such as a point-of-sale network or a person-to-person payment network built into its app, the investigation must reach that information (12 C.F.R. § 1005.11(c)(4)). The official commentary lists the kinds of records a reasonable review considers.

Keep the definition of "unauthorized" in view as you read the file. A transfer made by someone who got your card, code, or login through fraud or robbery is unauthorized (comment 2(m)-3), and your own carelessness cannot be used to increase your liability (comment 6(b)-2). A file that says "customer's credentials were used" and stops there has not answered the legal question.

In Monroe v. Grow Financial Federal Credit Union (M.D. Fla. 2022), a Florida federal court concluded that a credit union had neither reasonably investigated a disputed debit nor carried its burden of proving it was authorized. That is the kind of record a reversal can leave behind, and a court can act on it.

What are my rights in Florida?

Florida relies on the federal EFTA for these claims. The state's deceptive practices law exempts banks and credit unions, and Florida has no electronic transfer statute of its own. The EFTA lets you sue in state court or federal court, and Florida federal courts have decided both unreasonable-investigation and timing questions under it.

I practice from a single office in Tampa and handle these claims for people across Florida; the review and most of the work happen by phone, email, and video.

Because Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act does not reach banks, credit unions, or savings associations (Fla. Stat. § 501.212), the EFTA usually carries the case by itself. That is workable, because the federal statute shifts attorney's fees and costs to a bank that violated it and sets statutory damages that do not depend on the size of the loss.

On timing, Katz v. JPMorgan Chase (S.D. Fla. 2015) held that a claim for a bank's error-resolution failure accrues when the bank missed its deadline, not when the disputed transfer happened. That matters for reversals, which often land weeks or months after the original transaction.

Courts also ask whether you suffered a concrete injury. Being deprived of the use of your money, even for a time, generally qualifies, and a reversal does exactly that.

What can a reversed provisional credit claim be worth?

The EFTA allows actual damages, statutory damages of $100 to $1,000, and reasonable attorney's fees and costs against a bank that violated it. Actual damages can include the reversed amount, overdraft and returned-item fees caused by the reversal, and related losses. In some cases the court awards three times your actual damages.

Statutory damages do not require proof of a dollar loss, and the court sets the figure within the range by weighing how often and how seriously the bank fell short (15 U.S.C. § 1693m(a), (b)). Fee shifting means the bank, not you, pays the reasonable cost of the lawyer when you win.

The treble provision speaks directly to reversals. Damages are tripled when the bank did not provisionally recredit your account within the 10-business-day period and either did not make a good-faith investigation or had no reasonable basis for believing there was no error. They are also tripled when the bank knowingly and willfully concluded there was no error even though that conclusion could not reasonably be drawn from the evidence available to it (§ 1693f(e)). The multiplier applies to your actual damages, the money you actually lost, rather than to the statutory amount, so "up to three times your losses" is the accurate way to say it.

The bank can defend by proving a bona fide error despite procedures designed to avoid it, and the statute lets a court award fees against a consumer who sues in bad faith, so I look hard at the file before recommending a case. 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.

How long do I have?

You have one year from the violation to sue under the EFTA. When the violation is the way the bank handled your claim, the year runs from the bank's failure, for example the day its decision deadline passed, rather than from the original transfer. A South Florida federal court applied that rule in 2015.

That case is Katz, discussed above. For a reversal, the bank's failures can include missing the 45-day or 90-day completion deadline, reversing without notice of the date and amount, charging overdraft fees during the 5-business-day grace period, sending no written explanation, or concluding "no error" on evidence that couldn't support it. Each has its own date. I would rather you not rely on the latest one.

Two other clocks still run. If any disputed transfer has not yet been reported, report it within 60 days after the statement showing it was sent. And if you have not yet asked for the documents, ask now, so the bank's response arrives while there is still time to act on it.

What to do today

• Put the document request in writing to the error-resolution address, dated, with a copy kept, rather than calling the dispute line again.
• Pull your statements from the month of the disputed transfer through today, and mark the provisional credit, the reversal, and every fee charged after it.
• List anything that bounced or was charged an overdraft fee in the 5 business days after the reversal notice, with dates and amounts.
• Check the bank's dates against the rules: the day you first reported, the day the credit posted, the day it was reversed, and the day the letter arrived.
• Gather the file: your original dispute and claim number; any written confirmation you sent; the notice that the provisional credit was posted; the reversal notice or letter; the "no error" explanation, if any; your document request and the bank's response; fee and returned-item notices; and a log of every call with names and dates.
• Send it to me. Request a free case review and attach the letter and statements. I'll tell you which duties the bank met, which it missed, and what that is worth.

Sources: 15 U.S.C. §§ 1693f(e), 1693g(b), 1693m(a), (b), (c), (f), (g); 12 C.F.R. § 1005.11(a)(1)(vii), (b), (c)(1) to (4), (d)(1), (d)(2), (e); Official Interpretations to Regulation E, comments 2(m)-3, 6(b)-2, 11(b)(1)-2, 11(c)-2, 11(c)-3, 11(c)(4)-5; Katz v. JPMorgan Chase (S.D. Fla. Feb. 10, 2015), 2015 WL 11251764; Monroe v. Grow Financial Federal Credit Union (M.D. Fla. Dec. 5, 2022), 2022 WL 17417034; Fla. Stat. § 501.212. Last reviewed October 8, 2026.