[lxgr]

That's usually the problem of the bank that did not decline a check/ACH debit for insufficient balance in time, though.

In other words, "at the time we paid/did not reverse this, we thought the payer account was good for it, but as it turns out it was funded via transactions that ended up being reversed, and now the account is in the red" is not a valid reason to claw back money.

And that makes intuitive sense as well: Only the paying bank has a complete picture of all account activities (including out-of-character/potentially suspicious ones), so it makes sense to primarily hold them accountable.

[mindslight]

What is that timeframe though? I had the impression that it's longer than a week, which is the maximum time I've seen banks show newly deposited funds as not available.