European Court of Justice: Account fraud: Banks must first refund money

Luxembourg. Banks must first reimburse victims of account fraud immediately, even if they accuse them of gross negligence. The Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) made this clear in a ruling.

The payment service provider can then claim back the losses from customers that are due to their gross negligence, according to a statement from the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

The background was a case from Poland in which a bank customer fell victim to a phishing scam. The woman had offered an item on an online sales platform. A fraudster posed as a prospective buyer and sent her a link that supposedly came from the platform and was supposed to confirm the sale. The woman followed the link and ended up on a website that looked like her bank's. There she entered her access data for online banking. In fact, the perpetrator got hold of your data and transferred around 700 euros to his own account.

The customer reported the incident to her bank the next day. However, the institute refused a refund: the woman had made the fraud possible through gross negligence. The customer went to a Polish court, which referred the case to the ECJ for clarification.

According to an expert from the Federal Association of Consumer Organizations (vzbv), a similar practice can be observed in Germany as in the Polish case. This means that consumers have to invest a lot of effort in dealing with their payment service providers, give up or accept unfavorable comparison offers. In addition, people shy away from legal action to obtain reimbursement due to the risk of legal costs.

The Luxembourg judges made it clear: Banks must reimburse amounts from such transactions immediately if customers inform them in good time. There is only one exception under EU law: if there are reasons to suspect that those affected are committing fraud themselves and the bank informs the responsible national authority of this in writing. The Court referred to the aim of ensuring a high level of consumer protection.