A Kyiv resident sought state assistance but lost 27,000 hryvnias from his PrivatBank card. Here's the court's ruling on the matter.

A man clicked on a link to receive assistance from the government and entered his PrivatBank card PIN, only to later discover that 27,000 hryvnias had been withdrawn from his account. He is demanding that the bank return the funds and pay him compensation amounting to 100,000 hryvnias. This was stated in the ruling of the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv, published on May 26, 2023.

On August 9, 2022, the man accessed a link to obtain government assistance and personally entered his PIN for the "PrivatBank" card. Subsequently, he noticed that funds totaling 27,000 hryvnias were fraudulently withdrawn from two of his cards by an unknown individual. He filed a report with law enforcement, which initiated a criminal case under Part 1 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Before the confirmation of the fraudulent withdrawal, a message regarding an erroneous transfer was sent from JSC CB "PrivatBank," indicating that on August 9, 2022, the bank mistakenly transferred an amount of 26,000 hryvnias to an unknown recipient.

"The illegal withdrawal of funds occurred due to the plaintiff's actions, as it is essential to know the login password for Privat-24 to carry out a transaction. The plaintiff claims that on August 9, 2022, he independently clicked on a link to receive assistance from the government and personally entered the PIN of the cardholder, after which he discovered fraudulent activities on his cards and that 27,000 hryvnias were withdrawn. The access to Privat-24 was carried out under the plaintiff's personal authorization using his name and password," the bank stated.

What did the court decide?

The court denied the man's claim. He failed to provide evidence that the inaction and improper performance of duties by PrivatBank led to the unauthorized use of information that allowed unidentified individuals to commit fraudulent acts and initiate payment transactions.

"The court was not provided with evidence that the inaction and improper performance of obligations by the defendant under the contract concluded between the parties with JSC CB 'PrivatBank' while using the credit card resulted in the unauthorized use of information that enabled unidentified individuals to commit fraudulent acts and initiate payment transactions via the credit card, leading to the withdrawal of funds from the plaintiff's account. Given this, the court, evaluating the relevance, admissibility, credibility of each piece of evidence separately, as well as their sufficiency and interrelation in their totality based on its internal conviction, which relies on a comprehensive, complete, objective, and direct examination of the evidence available in the case, does not conclude that the evidence is valid. Consequently, there are no grounds for satisfying the claim," the court emphasized.