Victim of bank scam credits lack of security and fraud of $15 million from bank

A Scotiabank customerwho was deceived by scammers posing as bank executiveshas received justice after the Supreme Court ordered the bank to compensate him for the losses suffered.

As can be seen in the court ruling, in February 2019, The criminals contacted the client, tricking him into handing over his banking keys under the false premise of a need to migrate data to a new platform.

Using these keys, The scammers withdrew 15 million pesos in total from his account and requested a consumer loan for more than 11 million pesos in his name.

When the customer notified the bank about the fraud, The bank only cancelled the consumer loan and refused to return the 15 million euros stolen, arguing that the client had been irresponsible in sharing his passwords.

Faced with the bank’s refusal, the client took his case to court, accusing the bank of failing to adequately protect his account and allowing unusual transactions without proper precautions.

The lower courts initially rejected the client’s complaint, But he did not give up and took his case to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court reviewed the case and found that the bank had failed in its duty to monitor and control possible fraud, especially by failing to adequately verify the identity of new recipients of transfers and by allowing transfers for larger than usual amounts without adequate alerts.

As a result, the Supreme Court reversed the previous decisions and sentenced the bank to pay a fine of 10 UTM ($657,700) and to compensate the client for the economic losses and emotional damage suffered with $15,000,000 and the amount of one million.