A woman lost 382,404 hryvnias, which PrivatBank refuses to return. Here’s the court's decision on the matter.

A woman noticed a deduction of 382,404 hryvnias from her card. She believes that the disappearance of funds occurred due to PrivatBank's failure to take adequate measures to ensure proper protection of banking secrecy and access to her account. She is requesting the financial institution to return the money. This is stated in the decision of the Korosten District Court of the Zhytomyr region, published on November 19, 2024.

On September 11, 2024, funds in the amount of 382,404 hryvnias were deducted from the woman's accounts. The transfer of funds from the cards was executed by creating a payment in the Internet Banking system "Privat-24." She filed a complaint with the police, which initiated a criminal case under part 4 of Article 190 (fraud) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. However, the individual who committed the offense has not been identified.

The woman believes that the mentioned deduction of funds occurred due to the bank's insufficient measures to ensure proper protection of banking secrecy and access to her account, which led to interference by unauthorized individuals in the banking system's operation. She is seeking to recover the amount of 382,404 hryvnias from the joint-stock company commercial bank "PrivatBank."

"The internal investigation established the following circumstances: On September 11, 2024, at 09:25, the plaintiff called the bank and reported that funds had been deducted from all her cards on September 11, 2024, during a train trip. The client stated that she did not share any personal data. The same information was communicated to a bank security representative during a phone conversation on October 21, 2024, as part of the internal investigation: during the investigation, the client indicated that the day before (September 9 or 10), she received a message from "Privat-24" on her phone regarding assistance in the amount of 6,500 hryvnias. Two hours later, the client logged into "Privat-24" to check if any funds had been credited and saw that no funds had been received on her cards. The next day, the client was returning home from Odesa. Her phone was in her bag on the train. At night, funds were deducted, and the "Privat-24" application disappeared from her phone. She claims she did not follow any links, did not install any applications on her phone, and did not share her data with anyone. An analysis of the information from her card account revealed that on September 11, 2024, the following transactions were conducted: 09/11/2024 00:42:12 funds in the amount of 25,361 hryvnias were transferred to a card (issuer - JSC UNIVERSAL BANK), recipient unknown; 09/11/2024 00:43:37 funds in the amount of 25,361 hryvnias were transferred to a card (issuer - JSC UNIVERSAL BANK), recipient unknown; 09/11/2024 00:47:51 funds in the amount of 25,361 hryvnias were transferred to a card (issuer - JSC UNIVERSAL BANK), recipient unknown. The operations were conducted using the client's financial phone number, which is confirmed by evidence in the form of statements that detail each transfer," said PrivatBank.

What was the court's decision?

The court denied the woman’s claim. There was no fault of PrivatBank in the unauthorized deduction of funds from the card.

"If the plaintiff asserts that she did not carry out the mentioned operations, however, she has not provided evidence that these transactions were made due to the bank's fault, there is evidence that the transfer of funds from her cards was executed by creating payments in the remote customer service system - "Privat-24." Access to "Privat-24" was made under the client's authorization. In this procedure, she enters her username and password and logs into Privat-24, creates the necessary payment, inputs a key known only to her, and after that, a payment order is sent to the bank, according to which the bank executes the funds transfer. These actions were performed using the device that the client uses - SM-M135F|SAMSUNG, her financial phone, and other personal information (login password for "Privat-24"), therefore, the court concludes that the bank is not at fault for the unauthorized deduction of funds from the plaintiff's card," emphasized the court.