Machine scam: Itaú is ordered to indemnify customer – 06/07/2023 – Market

Itaú Unibanco was condemned by the Justice to reimburse a client who had R$9,000 withdrawn from her account after suffering the “defective machine” scam and will still have to indemnify her parents in R$5,000 for moral damages.

In the process, the bank claimed that the coup occurred due to the victim’s recklessness and denied error in providing the service.

The scam took place in March of this year when the client went to the Coldplay concert, held at the Morumbi stadium, and bought two T-shirts from a street vendor for R$80 each.

At the time of payment, the seller claimed that the credit card machine was faulty, as the device’s display indicated connection problems. At the time, he asked the buyer to enter the password three times. Five minutes after the operation, the victim of the scam received a phone call from her mother, who said she had been notified of purchases with “exorbitant amounts”.

The victim’s mother got in touch with the credit card center to report what had happened and contested purchases of R$4,000 and R$5,000, which were outside her daughter’s spending pattern. In addition, an incident report was registered. Despite the challenge, the bank approved the purchases.

In the sentence, Judge Érika Ricci, of the 1st Civil Court of São Caetano do Sul (SP), claimed that the bank is responsible for security procedures to prevent fraud.

“It should be borne in mind that financial institutions make a huge electronic device available for use by customers, with the purpose, on the one hand, of facilitating financial operations carried out by the consumer mass, on the other hand, to save costs with the maintenance of a service structure able to, with efficiency, agility and effective security, assist the client in such operations”, he explained.

Therefore, the judge highlighted that the bank should not transfer this responsibility to the customer. “It is unreasonable to transfer to the consumer the risks inherent in such services, whatever the respective causes”, she defined.

In addition to returning R$9,000 to the victim with interest, Itaú Unibanco was ordered to indemnify the young woman’s parents, authors of the action, by R$5,000 for moral damages, and also pay the costs of the lawsuit. The judge decided that the parents had a productive deviation, which is characterized by “wasting their time and diverting their skills” to solve a problem created by the supplier (in this case, Itaú).

In the lawsuit, Itaú claimed that there was no failure to provide the service and that the fraud was committed due to “imprudence” on the part of the victim. In a note sent to Sheetthe bank stated that “the transactions were carried out by the client herself, using her card with a chip and personal password, within the available credit limits”.

At the same time, the institution guided customers on measures to be taken to avoid similar scams. “The bank reinforces the guidance so that customers do not complete transactions at machines with a damaged display and pay attention to the value before typing the personal password on the devices, in addition to always requesting proof of payment”, he said.