A man's phone was stolen, and 107,254 hryvnias were charged to his PrivatBank credit card. Did the court order the funds to be returned?

A man had his phone stolen and 107,254 hryvnias were charged to his PrivatBank credit card. He demands that the financial institution return these funds. This is stated in the decision of the Desnyansky District Court of Kyiv, published on September 18, 2024.

On September 14, 2021, a consumer credit agreement was concluded between JSC "PrivatBank" and the man. On April 30, 2023, he was attacked and his phone was stolen. He filed a report about the criminal offense, and the information was entered into the Unified State Register of Court Decisions (ЕРДР). According to his bank account statements from JSC "PrivatBank" and reports from the Credit History Bureau, fraudulent actions were committed against the victim, resulting in the withdrawal of funds and the issuance of loans. The total amount of stolen funds, including interest charged, amounts to 107,254 hryvnias. He did not receive any notifications about the transactions made on his card accounts linked to the "Privat-24" mobile application, as his financial number remained with the criminal who stole his phone.

"The man states in his claim that on April 30, 2023, he was attacked and his mobile phone was stolen by an unknown person. However, the materials of the criminal case indicate that he lost his mobile phone on April 30, 2023, due to his own negligence. The plaintiff only returned with the corresponding statement to the police on May 5, 2023 (five days later), and to the bank only on May 16, 2023 (sixteen days later), while during this entire period he did not request to block access to his cards, financial phone number, and account in Privat-24," the bank stated.

Case Review

Analysis of the card statement shows that between April 30, 2023, and May 1, 2023, a series of transactions were conducted using the established credit limit. According to an internal investigation conducted by the bank, the transfers of funds were made by creating payments in the Privat-24 Internet Banking remote service system.

Moreover, access to Privat-24 both before and after the disputed transfers was carried out under the authorization of the man himself. In this procedure, the client enters their username and password to log into Privat-24, creates the necessary payment, enters a unique access key known only to him, and after that, a payment order is sent to the bank, which carries out the funds transfer. The transactions were made using a credit card added to the Google Pay service. The card was added on April 30, 2023, by submitting a session confirmation form in Privat-24. Access to Privat-24 was performed using confidential data such as login and password, and additionally, an IVR call was sent to the financial number to confirm the operation. Notably, the login password for Privat-24 was changed by him on April 25, 2023, five days before the loss of his mobile phone. The registration in Privat-24 on April 30, 2023, and May 1, 2023, was conducted using the password he changed on April 25, 2023. Thus, the person making transactions with his credit card had knowledge of the current login and password for registration in Privat-24.

What did the court decide?

The court denied the man's claim. He did not provide evidence of a violation of his rights and interests by JSC "PrivatBank."

"As indicated in the statement of account movements for the plaintiff's credit card, all transfers were made within the established credit limit of 50,000 hryvnias. After each transaction, the remaining balance was negative. The plaintiff had no personal funds on his credit card. The claims made by the plaintiff to recover the amount of credit funds and interest for their use were submitted without providing any evidence of the calculation of the claimed amount, meaning the plaintiff wishes to receive funds that do not belong to him, which are credit funds along with the bank's accrued fees for their use. The plaintiff in this case did not provide evidence of a violation of his rights and interests by the defendant JSC "PrivatBank," and the absence of such violations does not entitle him to protection through the means chosen and under the grounds specified in the claim. Filing a lawsuit by a person who does not have the right to demand due to the absence of a violated right by the defendant is grounds for denying such a claim," the court emphasized.