We have a customer who claimed fraud on the 59th day after her statement was mailed for about 59 internet transactions in the month of Nov and Dec. However, when we researched her acct, we noticed a credit from one of the "unauthorized" merchants (match.com). Also in researching her statement we noticed each statement had 3 pages of credits from merchants where she bought things at stores and returned them for at least going back 1 year. She is a habitual "returner" and we think she has now switched to internet since she has had no returns since these transactions started on the internet. We know she had to have called the merchant to get a credit from Match.com on that "unauthorized" transaction. She has also been transferring money by phone to cover all these charges. Can we deny this claim based on Reg E " if you would have notified us when the first error occurred we could have stopped future losses"??? If she would have told us of the Match.com charge instead of calling them and getting a credit, we could have stopped the future debits (if they are truly unauthorized -we have our doubts).

In regards to Reg E and the 60 days, you are responsible for all activity in the first sixty days regardless if she reported the trans on the 59th day or the 120th day.

Since the transactions are internet and still within the 120 days chargeback timeframe under both MC and Visa, get a signed aff and perform the chargebacks to prevent you from taking any losses. If the merchant represents, provide her with the merchant rebuttals and if she puts in writing that she is still claiming fraud after the reviewing the merchant info, do a pre-arb under Visa or 3rd chargeback under MasterCard. As long as these steps are done within the timeframes your bank will not lose out on the money.

C_Groat forgot to mention the most important step: Decide if you want this customer to continue having a debit card (or an account with you, for that matter). You still need to follow through on the current problems, but you don't need to be further victimized by this customer.