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The upward trend in cases of bank fraud is confirmed, underlines the ombudsman of Swiss banks in its annual report presented on Tuesday. Much of it involves cases related to credit and debit cards. Scammers have come up with many sophisticated methods to trick customers into making payments themselves or debiting their cards with false motives.
Another method is to fraudulently obtain passwords and access codes from customers in order to trigger payments. As the bank’s liability for damages is rarely incurred, it is usually the customers and not the financial institution that are targeted by these attacks. The thugs often remain untraceable and the victims only have their eyes to cry. The successes of a mediation procedure are rather the exception than the rule, apart from the solutions to please and the concessions made by the financial institutes, recognizes the mediation body.
“The thankless burden of settling damages always falls on the wrong people. Either the issuer of the card, who usually cannot be held liable due to contractual provisions, or the injured party, which is sometimes experienced as a trauma by victims of fraud”, observes Andreas Barfuss, ombudsman for Swiss banks since the beginning of the year.
Fake cops target the elderly
In its annual report, the mediation body reports that several customers have been victims of a variant of scam involving fake police officers. The thugs target the elderly in particular, contact them by telephone and pose as police collaborators. Fake police claim that a relative of the victim is in extraordinary distress, for example because he caused a car accident, and that he urgently needs cash.
Other customers have fallen victim to the method known as the “Microsoft scam”. False employees of the company contact the customer by phone claiming to remedy security problems on his computer. They thus access its e-banking system and initiate transactions themselves.
Cases of fraud on online sales platforms are also frequent. Persons allegedly interested in the article advertised by a customer claim to need, for the transfer of the purchase price, the data of his credit card, which they then use to carry out transactions in their favour.
Bank concessions
As it is often not possible to meet customer expectations, the prevention of cases of fraud is “extremely important”, underlines the mediation body. The ombudsman limits itself to recommending that customers comply with the information and warnings issued by the authorities, banks and consumer protection organisations. It also calls for caution with thee-banking on his cell phone.
In 2022, the mediation body settled 2006 cases, regarding 4% more than the previous year. About 60% of the written cases settled relate to the area “Account, payment transactions, cards”, for which fraud is the most frequent cause of problems. In detail, the ombudsman contacted the financial institution concerned in 257 files and proposed concrete solutions in 170 cases. In 95% of the interventions, the establishment concerned agreed with the opinion of the institution and made concessions to the clients.
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In addition, the banking ombudsman has so far not been inundated with requests related to the Credit Suisse debacle. In the weeks leading up to the fall of the number two Swiss bank, questions on the subject too big to fail increased as people worried regarding losing their savings. But subsequently, the expected flurry of questions did not take place. “A possible explanation is that the whole theme around the depreciation of AT1 bonds does not, strictly speaking, fall within the area of responsibility of the banks or the banking ombudsman”, advances the body.
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