There seems to be a lot of Reg E questions out there right now, so sorry to present another one. This has to do with provisional credit. I know when we find that an error occurred, we have to make the customer whole, as if it never happened. So we have to pay them interest (if applicable) and any fees that were caused by the error. The question is, do we provisionally credit the dollar amount of the claim within the 10 days and then any fees & interest after the investigation is completed, or do we provisionally credit all three (claim amount, fees, & interest) up front and then if we find that no error occurred, charge all three of them back against the account at that time? Also, is there ever a time that we don't deduct the first $50 (the amount the customer is liabile for) from the claim? Thanks for any help.

I like to say "make it like it never happened". You should make the customer whole (provisionally credit the claim + fees + interest) less the $50/$500.


Yes, when it is an error not involving an access devise or PIN (like an ACH error) or when it is a Visa/MC error ($0 liability to the customer).

I'll agree with David but go one further. 205.11(c)(2)(i) requires the provisional credit to be the amount of the error plus interest. I would add the fees that resulted from the unauthorized withdrawals to the "amount of the error" because they wouldn't have occurred otherwise. If you don't pay these on the front end, additional charges could be triggered because the balance is lacking. Interest would also be lost on that amount. By not paying it up front, how can you say you made the customer whole?

If this was your mom's account, wouldn't you want her to get the fees up front?