What does the Electronic Fund Transfer Act cover?

First of all, it is important to understand what types of transactions the Electronic Fund Transfer Act covers. The EFTA covers the following types of electronic transactions:

• Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) transactions.
• Debit transactions made in person at the store.
• Electronic banking transactions.

These types of electronic transactions are covered by EFTA, and EFTA provides the guidelines that resolve mistakes made during electronic transactions involving money, as well as how to resolve the issue of identity fraud in such cases.

Protections offered by the Electronic Fund Transfer Act

There are some protections offered by the Electronic Fund Transfer Act that you should be aware of. These include:

Charges and electronic transfers not authorized by the consumer. Check your statement and your online account regularly to verify that the transactions made were authorized by you. If charges and/or electronic fund transfers are made without your authorization, that needs to be acknowledged and remedied.

Wrongly identified charges and transfers. EFTA also covers mistakes made in reporting information related to dates, amounts and other information about the transfer. If your debit transaction was wrongly recorded in terms of amount, then the bank needs to fix that at no cost to you.

Computation errors. Sometimes computation errors exist – especially concerning humans. Any such errors need to be fixed at no cost to you, and your balance needs to be updated.

Payments and credits that are incorrectly recorded. In addition to mistakes made with regard to charges, payments and credits also need to be properly recorded. It is important that the institution fix these problems as well.

Statements and billing. Interestingly, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act also covers billing statements. If you send notice to a creditor that you have a new address at least 20 days before the end of the billion period (and you do it in writing), your statement must be sent to the correct address. If it is nice, you cannot be charged late fees for paying your bill late.

Notification of mistakes. If the credit institution or bank notices and fixes an error, you must be properly notified. The company must sent you documentation about the procedure, and provide a record about what was done. You can request documentation for yourself and others in such cases as well.

It is important to know your consumer rights, and to do your best to ensure that you are protected from fraudulent fund transfers and uses of your good name. You should understand that you have protections under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. In order to learn about these protections in more detail, visit the Web site for the Federal Trade Commission at www.ftc.gov.