German Banks wont pay for Scammed Users

German gets nasty TAN
27 Apr 2012 09:53 | by Nick Farrell in Rome


If you are dumb enough to fall for a phishing scam, you have only yourself to blame and your bank does not have to bail you out, a top German court has decided.

The German Federal Court of Justice in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe has ruled that clients, and not banks, are responsible for money lost in online phishing scams.

A German retiree lost $6,608 in a bank transfer fraudulently sent to Greece as part of a phishing scam.

According to the The Local, the man gave phishers 10 transaction numbers, also known as TAN codes, which are commonly used in German banks, on a site which looked like his bank's site, Sparda Bank.

The court ruled the bank had specifically provided warnings to its customers against this practice, so the man was responsible.

The customer argued that the bank had a duty to protect its customers from the abuse of these codes. So far, however, the courts have not agreed.

Sparda Bank had warned that it was "widely known" that being asked to input multiple TAN codes was a sure fire sign of phishing.

It is not clear at this point how influential this ruling will be in the rest of the EU. Certainly we expect the court's arguments will be touted in similar cases thoughout the region.

Read more: http://news.techeye.net/security/banks-may-not-have-to-pay-for-phished-users#ixzz1tgfb6Wsw

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Wonder if it'll set a precedent for other European and US Banks, particularity since Deutch Banks are very big players in the banking world.

 

We give these classes to soldiers all the time and they still get scammed. People just dont listen to information that protects them most times. They always think "wont be me". I can see if it was a new scam, but in his case it was not. So I think he is responsible just as the court does. I think banks should hold people responsible for getting scammed but only after an alert is posted. Maybe more people will start reading those alerts and the scammers will be out of business.

 

It's half knowledge and have persecution.
You can tell people something until the moon falls out of orbit and they still won't get it. Something needs to be put in place for those of us not so fast on the uptake.

And then of course..a law of some sort...local state federal international..whatever the case may be needs to be used to bring these scammers to a stop and make them the actual responsible party. They are after all the people stealing millions of dollars.

I'm slow, but not entirely dur and my account got phished. It's not enough to say "we gave a warning". That's nice. This old man is 7000$ poorer while someone sits somewhere with his and mine and whoever else's money. I know they banks don't want to have to bail out the customers..but didn't we as a government basically keep them solvent a few years back? And all around they still wanna be like, oh, well. Tuff titties?

They tend to forget that the reason they have money is bc we put it there. It's not their money really.

 

I agree that the government should get cracking on this crime. BUT... if they could do that there would be less identity theft too. The resources needed to catch the scammers are simply not in place yet. The public/customer is therefore warned AFTER a few people are scammed. Everyone tells their story and if the stories match then out goes the alert to warn others.

I am fully protected from scams and phishing with my bank. They monitor my account and I even have to tell them before I leave the state or end up with a frozen account until I contact them. That happened twice already with my NY trips. I have been scammed in Germany by a pay phone and never knew it until my bank told me about it. But not every bank is like that. Even though its really not their money bank are getting tired of footing the bill for people who just dont listen.

That old man probably does not bank by computer or have email just like my Dad. It would be nice if the banks could/would inform those people by mail/phone of the latest scams. It would be nice if the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) covered more than just bank failure. So much would be nice but its just not here yet. So we have to watch our own money for now if we expect to have it when we need it.

 

thank you

I will be posting the information you have given in the link you have provided on another forum

thank you so much