The Payment Asymmetry

After the fact, the payment method decides whether money comes back. Nothing else matters as much.

Credit cards are strongest. The Truth in Lending Act caps liability for unauthorized charges at $50, and every major network offers zero in practice. The Fair Credit Billing Act is the dispute process. Debit cards and ACH are covered by the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and Regulation E — real error-resolution rights and liability caps that can be as low as fifty dollars if you report promptly, and that grow sharply the longer you wait. The difference from credit is that the money leaves your actual account first.

Then protection drops sharply. A traditional wire transfer you were manipulated into authorizing has historically sat outside the consumer regime, under commercial law rather than consumer law.

One federal district court, in New York v. Citibank, held that some parts of a consumer wire can fall under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. The Second Circuit heard that appeal on April 6, 2026. Treat that appeal as unsettled, and never as protection you can count on.

Push payments through instant transfer apps are in the same weak category. The CFPB sued over Zelle fraud in December 2024 and dismissed that case in March 2025. New York filed its own case in August 2025.

Gift cards and cryptocurrency have no chargeback of the kind a credit card has. The FTC has documented gift cards as a preferred method for scammers for years, for the reason that makes them useless once they are spent.

The distinction that runs through all of it is authorized versus unauthorized. Consumer protection was built for the case where someone else used your instrument. Being deceived into using it yourself is a different legal category and a much weaker one. That is why the defense is a household rule about instruments, decided calmly in advance, rather than a judgment made under pressure.