What to do for each way the money left.

An e‑Transfer

What can still be done. If it is not yet deposited, the person who sent it can cancel it from the transaction history in their own online banking. Once it has been deposited, Interac says it cannot be reversed.

The window. Until it is deposited. If the recipient has autodeposit on, there is no window at all.

autodeposit an e‑transfer setting that puts the money straight in, with nothing to accept

Without it a transfer waits to be picked up, and that wait is the only window in which the sending bank has something to pull back. Switched on at the receiving end, there is no wait and no window. It is the recipient who turns it on, not the sender.

A pre-authorized debit, the arrangement that lets a company take an amount out of the account on a schedule

What to ask for. Ask the bank for reimbursement. You sign a declaration saying which of five grounds applies.

• The debit was not authorized.
• It was not drawn in accordance with the agreement.
• It came out on the wrong date.
• It came out for the wrong amount.
• It came out after the agreement had been cancelled.

The window. 90 calendar days from the date the money came out of the account. After that the institution does not have to reimburse anything.

Stopping the next one. Notify the biller in writing and keep a copy. Under Payments Canada’s rules the biller must cancel the agreement within 30 days of that notice.

What a stop payment does not settle. Asking the bank to stop a payment blocks a withdrawal. It does not end the agreement, and ending the agreement does not cancel the underlying contract or what is owed under it.

A credit card

The call. Telephone the issuer without delay and say which lines were not authorized. On the same call, ask how many days you have to dispute a charge.

• Who sets the deadline. The card network, not your bank. Your issuer can tell you which network your card runs on.
• Visa and Mastercard. Both publish 120 calendar days for a disputed charge, and each counts from its own starting day.
• Whose deadline it is. Those 120 days are the limit for the dispute to have been processed, not for you to report it. Yours is earlier by however long your bank takes, so call now.

What you can be made to pay. For a card issued by a federally regulated institution, the most a cardholder can be held to for use without their permission is $50. The exception is gross negligence in safeguarding the card and its details, which Quebec calls gross fault.

a chargeback asking whoever issued your card to reverse a charge

It runs through the card network, so you raise it with the card issuer rather than with the merchant. There is a deadline, and it runs from the day the transaction went through, not from the day you noticed. Cards only, not transfers.

federally regulated a bank, rather than most credit unions

It decides which written rule your money falls under. Banks answer to a federal regulator and to the rules that come with it. Most credit unions are provincially regulated and set their own terms instead, which can be better or worse but are not the same rule.

gross negligence the exception that takes away the limit on what you can be made to pay

The cap on what a cardholder can be made to pay for use they did not permit has one way out, and this is it: not looking after the card and its details. Quebec calls the same thing gross fault. It is the institution that claims it, not you.

Cash handed over

There is nothing to reverse. Nothing at the bank or anywhere else can undo it.

Where it goes instead. Local police. The Anti-Fraud Centre says to contact them as soon as possible, because investigating is their job, not its own. A courier at the door, or an envelope handed over, gives the police a description, a vehicle and an address.

Gift cards

The call. Tell the company named on the card, through its own website, not on a number from whoever asked for the cards.

How to reach them. Apple asks you to contact Apple Support online. Amazon.ca asks you to log in and contact Customer Service. Google has a report form that only the person scammed can file, and says it cannot issue a new card for one a scammer has used.

If nobody has read the numbers out yet

A card nobody has the numbers for yet. Steam says it can go back to the shop that sold it. For one already read out, it says to keep the card and the receipt, and report it to police.

Where it goes as well. Local police, and a report to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.

Cryptocurrency, sometimes called crypto

What can be done. The Centre says a completed transaction is very unlikely to be reversed.

The call, all the same. Straight away, tell the trading site or wallet the money went through, and the bank it came from. The British Columbia Securities Commission asks for both.

Where it goes as well. Local police, the same as cash handed over.