A Kyiv resident received a call from Oschadbank and lost 63,000 hryvnias from his account. Did the court manage to recover the funds?

A man received a call from someone claiming to be from Oschadbank and took certain actions. Later, he discovered withdrawals from his account totaling 63 thousand hryvnias. This was stated in the decision of the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv, published on December 16, 2024.

On December 11, 2022, the man received a call from supposed representatives of Oschadbank, who warned him about an imminent unauthorized withdrawal of 29,500 hryvnias from his card. He was asked to provide his full card number and password, which he did. Subsequently, two payments of 29,500 hryvnias each were made from his account to a card opened at "TAScombank." Additionally, five top-ups of his mobile number were made from the same card, each amounting to 800 hryvnias, totaling 4 thousand hryvnias. From the two payments (29,500 hryvnias each), the bank deducted a fee of 680 hryvnias. On December 13, 2022, information regarding signs of a criminal offense as stipulated in part 1 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine was entered into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations.

On February 7, 2023, the man filed a written complaint with JSC "State Savings Bank of Ukraine" regarding the unlawful acquisition of his funds by unknown individuals. In response, on March 24, 2023, he received a reply from the dispute operations support department of the electronic payment security management, stating that his request for the return of the funds amounting to (as noted by the bank) 60 thousand hryvnias had been denied.

"The plaintiff violated the terms of the banking agreement and the rules for conducting operations on accounts opened by individuals at JSC 'Oschadbank,' given that he independently disclosed information about his cards and passwords," the bank stated.

What was the court's decision?

The court denied the man's claim. He failed to prove that his rights were violated specifically by Oschadbank.

"JSC 'State Savings Bank of Ukraine' lawfully executed the transfers on December 11, 2022, as per the plaintiff's instructions. After analyzing the evidence provided by both the plaintiff and the defendant, the court concluded that the disputed transfer of 63 thousand hryvnias (excluding the 680 hryvnias fee) was initiated by the plaintiff and properly executed by the defendant, who cannot be held responsible for the fraudulent actions of third parties that affected the plaintiff. The bank's fault has not been proven, and the involvement of the defendant's employees has not been established; under these circumstances, the claim cannot be satisfied," the court emphasized.