I live in America. I have got back every single cent I have lost due to fraudulent charges on my account. Furthermore, I was refunded instantly by the bank pending investigation.
The bank you have did the right thing and I think most banks and credit unions will do this, as it’s bad for a lot of reasons not to.
That said, the legal obligations around how this works is very different. One of the reasons common advice is use a credit card for online purchases instead if a debit card or checking account link is because of the fact that they have different liability expectations around fraud[0]
[0]: there are of course a multitude of good reasons for this advice generally speaking, but this one is cited a lot
You are incorrect. This isn’t good will measures, these are required by law. The EFTA, for example, requires banks to make you whole against fraudulent ATM transactions. The CC recommendation is more about you having more time and flexibility to dispute the charge without risking access to cash; most Americans don’t even have a few thousand dollars in cash so a fraudulent ATM withdrawal is a major problem. But if you have a good chunk of cash the fraudulent ATM transaction will not really be felt by you provided you follow the requirements about notification (you have 2 days after noticing to report it to the bank).
The losses due to fraudulent CC activity are governed by the FCBA.
It’s shocking how people think companies do this kind of stuff out of good will rather than being forced by law.
Are you mixing up fraudulent credit card charges? Because that's a whole lot other story. I can't even imagine you would be able to get any fraudulent debit card charges back from the bank.
I got a call from the bank asking if I'd spent over $8k today on my debit card at a mall and restaurant in a shady part of town... I said no, and they ended up refunding me and issuing me a new card.
They did ask me to make a statement to the police, which I did.
Funnily enough when I talked to the police, they said, "Oh, $7k, is that all? Just today we had someone lose over $140k".
How do you even spend $140k on a credit card? Must have been a platinum card or whatever.
I'm in Australia, not sure how different things are here.
Interesting. In EU the bank's liability is typically limited. However, but now that I think of it, they are only liable for bigger sums, not petty theft. So if you get scammed of up to, say, 200 euro, they don't care. Anything more than that, they do.
