Recent highlights in the FDIC newsletter refers to requirements for initiating an error investigation. It states:

The FDIC has also observed instances where financial institutions have imposed onerous requirements for initiating an error investigation. Examples include requiring the consumer to come into a branch to file a dispute, file a police report, provide a notarized affidavit, or complete a specified dispute form. While a financial institution may request written confirmation of an oral notice within 10 business days of the notice, the financial institution may not require that the confirmation appear on a particular form or be notarized.

Specifically, looking at the example of requiring the consumer to "complete a specified dispute form.” is where I am hung up.

Hoping someone can provide a further clarification. What exactly are they implying?

Once the customer discloses the reason for dispute, there are corresponding questions (specific dispute questionnaire/forms) pertaining to that claim to help our investigation. Seems natural and extremely common across most banks to have set questions to gather more information.

You can ask, but it cannot be a requirement for you to do your investigation and resolve the claim.

If you can identify your customer, the account, and the transaction(s) in question, the customer has provided everything (s)he is required to provide. If you require anything further before you accept a claim, you are in violation of Reg E - including requiring a specific form.

You're correct that it's common practice to ask for a specific form with tailored questions. We do it here, too. The key word is ask - not require. Most of the time your customers are more than willing to provide the information, just remember in the case of a phone call notification you are effectively notified and should begin your investigation. If you have disclosed and require written notification, then you can withhold provisional credit - but otherwise you're on the hook. If you're notified by email, that's generally going to be considered written notification (at least that's our interpretation here).

If it helps, we use our dispute forms for every single dispute. If we get a call, our reps fill in the form, record the date of the call, and forward to our dispute dept. If an email, we print the email and keep it with the file, but transfer the information to our dispute form. If a customer actually drops off some kind of written notification (happens once in a blue moon, usually a statement with transactions circled with some iteration of "I didn't do this") we transfer the info to our dispute form. See the pattern? We do require the use of our forms for consistency...we just don't require our customers to fill it in.