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Comment by patio11 | Hacker News Reader

Since this is sort of my beat:

If this ever happens to you, immediately call bank, say “Electronic transaction posted in error.”, specifically identify the transaction, and ask what address the bank takes Regulation E written complaints at. If the CSR doesn’t know that answer, their supervisor does, or in the alternative FedEx HQ addressed to chief counsel or head of compliance. The letter just needs to state transaction details, date you first called them, and your desired action (“Credit me back $X.”), but it’s marginally more effective to say Regulation E in it since that will put the fear of God into whomever opens it.

You’ll get the money back.

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Hey Patrick, I'm surprised to see "this is sort of [your] beat". Do transactions like this happen to you often? What sort of speed-to-recovery do you see when you take this approach?

The guy works for Stripe. I’d say as a company they’re pretty savvy about banking regulations in general, and transaction disputes specifically.

His blog also mentions that he's ghostwritten a few hundred letters to various financial institutions in order to resolve errors in credit reports (https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r...).

I suspect it's because he works for Stripe now, which handles the electronic transfer of monies. Therefore, Stripe would have to know about Regulation E to be able to operate effectively in that space.

It has been my experience that when working at a company, even if you didn't know or care about the industry/field that company does business in before starting there, you can't help but learn the ins and outs of that field or industry while working there, to at least a partial degree. The particulars of that field will necessarily influence business operations, and therefore, what you do in that company in some form or another. How much one absorbs, and how much he is aware of this will depend on both the individual and the duties of his position, and whether this comes from deliberate training or cultural osmosis. But I don't think that a person could remain completely ignorant of the particulars of an industry after being employed by a company in that space.

That's my theory, anyway. Watch Patrick prove me wrong by describing how he came into knowledge of Regulation E by some other path than training or cultural osmosis while working at Stripe

While that was a high percentage guess, and I have learned a lot at Stripe, I have pre-existing comparative advantage on this topic as a result of Ctrl-F “weird hobby”: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r...

Not sure I'm correctly parsing "high percentage guess", but nonetheless, after clicking through that link, I feel like a derp, because I'm pretty sure I'd read it before and should have thought of it, but didn't. Oh well.

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