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Comment by NovemberWhiskey | Hacker News Reader

Like what? Zelle has exactly the same consumer protections as ACH, as far as I know. It's exactly the same consumer protection law in each case.

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I know it's very easy to reverse an ACH transaction. The receiving bank (not the receiving account) is on the hook for 60 days (maybe more).

This is specifically what I'm talking about. ACH gives a ridiculously long window to contest and reverse the transaction. Zelle is more like a wire, for better or for worse: when that money is transferred it's a done deal and not reversible.

Right, but typically ACH is only reversed in cases of fraud, not because of some consumer issue (the product wasn't what I expected). And it's not an easy process to complete, it can take months to have access to your funds again.

An ACH transfer can also be reversed if the amount transferred was incorrect, if it's a duplicate transaction, or if it was sent to the wrong account number. Also, there's not a lot of pushback from the bank if a customer asserts ACH fraud when asking for a reversal. Good thing, because it's pretty trivial to get someone's routing and account number, they're printed on every check you write.

Zelle, on the other hand, will not reverse a payment if you get the phone number wrong.

You’ve got a ton of this wrong - it is extremely hard to reverse an ach, doubly so if the receiving side of the reversal disagrees. They recently increased penalties to 500,000 per occurrence for improper reversals, and banned all reversals for non white listed reasons

That’s my understanding.

At the end of the day the banks need to balance their books. So if an ACH needs to be corrected, they figure out what went wrong and hash it out with the other bank.

I’ve had unexpected deposits show up in my account and then be removed days later. Likely someone fat fingered an account number.

But the system works because all the banks have an incentive to make it work and a requirement their books individually balance.

But you’re right. Unless it’s a bank’s mistake or obvious fraud where the bank played a roll, they generally aren’t interested in reversing ACH transfers over consumer issues.

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