Transient epileptic amnesia (TEA) is a presumably underdiagnosed syndrome belonging to the group of temporal lobe epilepsies. It can easily be misdiagnosed as transient global amnesia (TGA), transient ischaemic attack, psychogenic amnesia or even dementia. Many patients complain of loss of autobiographical memory and accelerated long-term forgetting. We present a case to emphasize both the importance of diagnosing TEA and the pitfalls between TEA and TGA syndrome.