We collect judgments on disputes about liability for online banking fraud. Where courts have ordered banks or savings banks to credit money debited from their customers, we also name, as far as we know, the lawyer who won the judgment in favor of the account holder.
Call with bank number
In a case in which a fraudster apparently called from the number of the savings bank that held the account, the Cologne Regional Court did not see any gross negligence on the part of the account holder and ordered the financial institution to reimburse its customer 14,000 euros.
Landgericht Köln, Judgment of 20.11.2023
File number: 22 O 43/23 (not yet legally binding)
Verbraucheranwalt: Attorney David Stader of Stader Rechtswanälte, Cologne
Fraudster knew the name of the bank advisor
According to the Stade Regional Court, a cooperative bank must reimburse a customer 24,890 euros after fraudsters obtained the letter with the activation code for setting up the app to authorize orders. Even if the customer had passed on the activation code herself – as the bank claimed – this was not gross negligence. Since the fraudster knew the name of the bank advisor and apparently called the bank’s telephone number, the customer did not have to be particularly suspicious, the court explained its ruling against the bank.
Landgericht Stade, Judgment of 30.06.2023
File number: 6 O 267/22
Verbraucherinanwälte: KWAG Lawyers, Bremen
Call from alleged Telekom employee
A northern German cooperative bank has to reimburse a customer a large portion of 32,000 euros that fraudsters stole from his account in a manner that is still unclear. What is known is that an alleged Telekom employee called him and asked whether he really wanted to sign up for a premium package with his mobile phone contract. He said no.
The caller then asked for help in canceling the contract and asked for details from the man’s Telekom customer account. However, he did not give the caller his PIN for telephone banking or any information about his bank details. However, he did receive various SMS messages from Telekom on his mobile phone. He passed the data on to the caller.
It is possible that the fraudsters obtained the data needed for online banking via the customer account at Telekom. In any case, they managed to transfer the man’s money to an account in Spain and then make it disappear from there. After the judges in Kiel indicated in the oral hearing that they did not consider the man’s behavior to be grossly negligent, the bank agreed to cover 77 percent of the damages.
Landgericht Kielcomparison in 2023
File number: 12 O 40/22
Verbraucheranwalt: Attorney Ulrich Husack from Juest + Oprecht, Hamburg
Increased liability for lawyers
In contrast, according to the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main, a lawyer and tax consultant working for an international law firm was left with 50,000 euros in damages, even though he responded to an SMS that appeared to have come from a bank number. He should still have recognized the message as a typical phishing attempt, ruled the judges at the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main.
Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt am Main, Judgment of 06.12.2023
File number: 3 U 3/23 (not yet legally binding).
