Russian banks are very reluctant to return written-off items due to fraudulent activities facilities. Let's figure out how to force banks to return stolen money.

On June 3, 2015, Alfa Bank client Nina Farizova became a victim of fraudsters. She received an SMS message that according to her credit card a purchase was made for 24 thousand rubles. Farizova was asked to call back the number indicated in the SMS if such an operation did not take place. At the other end of the line, the attacker asked the victim to dictate the card number and CVV code (the security code indicated on the back of the card).
A few minutes later, another SMS message arrived, this time a real one - about debiting 72 thousand rubles from the card. A minute later, Farizova received a call from an employee of the Alfa Bank call center and reported that a suspicious operation had been carried out on her card - money had been transferred to another card using an online transfer service. Farizova told about the call from the scammers and asked to block the card. An hour later, at the Alfa Bank branch, she was already writing an application for a refund. The next day she contacted the police.
According to the Group-IB computer forensics laboratory, 44 thefts are committed daily in Russia using remote banking systems. Damage to Russians from Internet fraud in financial sector in 2013–2014 exceeded $426 million. Almost 70% ($290 million) of this amount came from online banks, says Sergei Nikitin, deputy head of Group-IB. Using phishing (obtaining and using personal data of the cardholder), the attackers managed to steal $50 million, and another $30 million came from electronic money theft.
In theory, citizens were supposed to be protected from the growing wave of fraud by the Law “On National payment system" According to it, the bank must return the money written off by the scammers if the affected client contacts the bank within 24 hours. In some cases, the application period may be extended, explains the head of the National Council financial market Andrey Emelin. “After the application, the bank must block the account and sort out the situation. The law allocates up to 30 days for the bank to review (or 60 if a foreign entity was involved in the operation). “In practice it happens much faster. These 30 and 60 days are needed for a thorough internal investigation and work with payment systems,” says Emelin.
In fact, banks extremely rarely return money, says financial ombudsman Pavel Medvedev. “In my experience, this happens in isolated cases,” he says. Credit organizations They don’t even disclose in detail the criteria by which they decide to return money to clients.
Farizova’s money was not returned either. According to the bank, she either entered or dictated to the scammers a code for the operation, which should have been received in an SMS message before the funds were debited. Farizova claims that the SMS with the code came during a conversation with the scammer, she did not dictate it. "Eat technical conclusion, which indicates that the 3D Secure password was entered,” says Vladimir Bakulin, an employee of the Alfa Bank monitoring service. According to him, without this, the operation would not have been completed, despite the fraudsters having the card number and CVV.
Why then did the bank call the client at all? Representatives of Alfa Bank did not elaborate on how exactly the monitoring service identified the suspicious transaction. “The system knows the client, knows what his usual operations are,” says Alexey Golenishchev, director of Alfa Bank’s e-business monitoring directorate. According to him, the bank's system notifies of transactions that do not correspond to the client's profile.
Farizova does not disclaim responsibility for transferring the CVV code and card number to scammers. But, according to her, the operation should not have happened. “The bank must take care of the safety of the client’s funds,” she is indignant and is going to go to court. “If fraud directed against the bank’s systems is established, the money is returned. If the attacker entered the PIN code and card number, having learned it from the client, then the funds are not returned,” explains Alfa Bank.
Lawyers say that it is usually difficult for clients to prove their case in court. Dmitry Yanin, chairman of the board of the International Confederation of Consumer Societies, believes that before suing, it is worth assessing the amount of losses and costs. “If the bank refuses, the client’s chances are low. Even contacting law enforcement agencies, according to my practice, is not a compelling argument that the client is not involved in a fraudulent scheme,” he says.
Roman Terekhin, partner of the Delovoy Fairvater law firm, proposes to substantiate claims against the bank under Article 847 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. According to it, the client must confirm his order to write off funds with a handwritten signature, entering a code or password. Terekhin says that as long as the fact of compromising keys and passwords due to the client’s fault is not proven, the client remains right. According to him, it is the bank that must prove the legality of the transaction. Otherwise, he is obliged to compensate for losses.
Terekhin cites as an example a similar case considered by the Primorsky Regional Court against Sberbank. Then the court supported the bank client in a similar situation, since the bank did not prove that the plaintiff disclosed the PIN code, card number or other information. There was also no evidence that the card was transferred to others or that the client failed to comply with the precautions for using the card.

What to do if scammers have debited your money?
Pavel Medvedev, financial ombudsman
“According to the law “On the National Payment System”, the bank must return the money wrongfully written off to you, and then figure out why it was stolen. If you become a victim of a fraudster, you need to contact your bank branch within 24 hours and write a statement. Remember that you must receive two copies of a document indicating that you have reported the problem to the bank. Unfortunately, sometimes bank employees say that they don’t have forms today and advise you to come tomorrow. But by tomorrow the legal deadline will have passed, and you will no longer be able to claim a refund. If this happens, you need to ask the bank employees to give you an official notification that there are no forms, and inform you that you will transfer this paper to the prosecutor's office. If this does not help, you need to bring witnesses and write complaints to the bank’s head office. If the bank refuses to return the money, which most often happens, you can go to court. But you need to understand that the probability of winning is not very high.”
Dmitry Yanin, Chairman of the Board of the International Confederation of Consumer Societies
“In the event of litigation with a bank, you need to keep in mind the amount of stolen goods and the amount of costs. You need to understand how they relate to each other and whether it is even worth it. In addition, you need to realize that it will be very difficult to prove something in court. If the bank refuses, the client's chances are very low. Even contacting law enforcement agencies, according to my practice, is not a compelling argument that the client is not involved in a fraudulent scheme.”
Svetlana Tarnopolskaya, lawyer at Yukov and Partners
“The question of the advisability of going to court must be decided in each specific case, taking into account the circumstances. It is also necessary to evaluate the prospects for collecting evidence, for example, obtaining information from mobile operators using legal requests. Judges in such cases often make decisions at their own discretion. I believe that most cases of fraud in the field of electronic banking remain outside of civil proceedings - clients simply feel sorry for the time and expense of pursuing a case in court. In any case, I would recommend contacting law enforcement agencies so that methods of fraud come to their attention.”
Alexander Golubev, Head of Legal Department of SDM Bank
“Before arguing with the bank, you need to check whether the client’s actions were the reason for the write-off. It is possible that the client did not store the card and data in good faith. For example, if a PIN code was written on the card with a black marker, then you should not hope for a refund from the bank. Next, you need to send a claim to the bank. It's better to call the call center. Firstly, they will be able to quickly block your card. Secondly, you can always request a recording of a conversation in court - as evidence that you acted in good faith. There may not be a recording of the call, but the phone company will retain a record that you called. The decision to return funds depends on the policy of a particular bank. But if there were no gross violations on the part of the client, the bank will not resist and will return the money.”
Grigory Kolesnikov, lawyer at the European Legal Service
“If a person does not know who, where and when took money from him, first of all he needs to contact the police at his place of residence. Then you can deal with the bank. The main thing here is the agreement between the client and the bank. The bank can carry out transactions on the client's instructions. If we are talking about violations on the part of the bank, then the client as a consumer, according to Article 29 of the Law “On the Protection of Consumer Rights,” may receive a penalty and compensation for moral damage. In addition, the bank may be charged a fine as punishment in the amount of 50% of the claims for not satisfying them voluntarily.”

Bank cards are classified as electronic means of payment. The legislation establishes a number of obligations for the bank and the client, the compliance or non-compliance of which determines whether the amounts stolen from his account will be returned to the client or not (Clause 19, Article 3, Article 9 of the Law of June 27, 2011 N 161-FZ) .

1. Informing about transactions with accounts

The bank is obliged to inform the client about each transaction made using his bank card by sending the client a corresponding notification in the manner established by the agreement with the client (Part 4 of Article 9 of the Law of June 27, 2011 N 161-FZ). There are different ways for the bank to send notifications: SMS notifications, mailing e-mail, information via Internet banking. At the same time, at least one of the methods of information must be free for the client.

2. Procedure in case of unauthorized access of third parties to your accounts

If you find transactions on a bank card that you did not perform (hereinafter also referred to as unauthorized transactions), we recommend that you adhere to the following algorithm.

Step 1. Make sure that you really did not perform this operation

There can be many reasons for questions about debiting money from a card. For example, when making a purchase using a bank card, the money is sometimes not debited immediately, but is only blocked in the account. The actual write-off occurs within a few days. But there are cases when a longer period of time passes from the date of purchase to the date of write-off, sometimes up to two to three weeks. Accordingly, it is not always possible to immediately remember that money was written off for a previously made purchase.

There are also cases when SMS messages about completed transactions arrive with a delay of several hours due to technical reasons, which can also raise suspicions of misuse of your card by third parties.

Step 2. Immediately call the bank’s contact center

Your duty is to immediately notify the bank if the card is lost or used without your consent after discovering the relevant fact, but no later than the day following the day you receive notification of transactions from the bank (Part 11, Article 9 of Law No. 161-FZ).

The contact center phone number is always indicated on the back of the card. You must immediately notify the operator about unauthorized transactions on your card, and also ask to block the card. Perhaps the contact center operator will ask you to perform some other actions.

Step 3. Contact the bank branch with a complaint, and, if necessary, also file a police report

If there are suspicions that fraudulent transactions have been committed with your card, you should contact any police department and write a statement with a request to initiate a criminal case regarding the commission of fraudulent actions (Part 2 of Article 141, Part 1 of Article 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation).

An application to the bank about disagreement with the transactions performed can be drawn up in the form provided by the bank or in free form. At the request of the bank, additional documents must be attached to the application depending on the nature of the transaction performed using a bank card (for example, a resolution to initiate a criminal case for fraudulent transactions).

Sometimes money is written off from the card due to technical glitches. For example, a transaction may be doubled if, when you paid for a purchase, two identical amounts were debited from your card to the same seller, or when making a purchase, the terminal issued a check indicating an error/cancellation of the transaction, but the money was still debited. In this case, you must attach the receipts you have to the application.

Step 4. Wait for the results of the bank’s review of your claim

Legislatively fixed time consideration by the bank of the claim - no more than 30 days from the date of receipt of the claim, and when carrying out international transactions - no more than 60 days from the date of receipt of the claim. The agreement between you and the bank may stipulate more short term(Part 8 of Article 9 of Law No. 161-FZ).

If the decision is positive, the funds will be returned to the bank card account or another account specified by you in the application. If the decision is negative, you must be given motivated refusal. At your request, the result of the consideration of the claim can be provided to you in writing.

Step 5. Go to court

If funds were debited from a bank card without your consent due to the fault of the bank, you have the right to file a claim with the bank from whose card the funds were debited for damages, as well as interest for unlawful deduction Money(Clause 1, Article 11, Article 395 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation; Clause 1, Article 17 of the Law of 02/07/1992 N 2300-1).

3. Security rules when using bank cards

Often the cause of fraudulent transactions is non-compliance with security rules by the clients themselves. In this case, it is extremely difficult to return the written off money. In this regard, the Bank of Russia recommends, in particular (Letter of the Bank of Russia dated October 2, 2009 N 120-T):

1) never disclose your PIN to third parties, including relatives and employees of a credit institution;

2) remember the PIN or store it separately from the bank card in an implicit form and in a place inaccessible to third parties;

3) do not transfer the bank card to third parties for use;

4) upon receipt of a bank card, sign on the back of it, if required (which will reduce the risk of it being used without your consent).

fraud bank card

How to return money to the card?

Question: I use Social card Sberbank since 2013, and until recently everything suited me. But on June 29, 2015, more than ten thousand rubles were illegally written off from my card by unknown persons, within 20 minutes, in several payments. I didn’t receive any SMS messages from Sberbank, I didn’t give the card to anyone and I didn’t tell anyone any information about it. How could this happen? And how to get your money back. This is my monthly pension and I was left without funds for a whole month.

Answer: There are many schemes for unauthorized debiting of funds from bank cards, or rather from card accounts, including fraudulent schemes for debiting funds by stealing bank card data via the Internet or an ATM. Despite the measures taken by banks, the number of fraudulent transactions with bank cards continues to grow and methods become more sophisticated. Is it possible to recover lost money? Yes, you can.

How to return illegally debited funds from a card?

Having received an SMS message from the bank about the payment, and having established the fact of unauthorized debiting of funds from the card (card account), the holder of the bank card must immediately send a notification to the bank to reimburse the illegally debited funds, and the bank is obliged to return these funds to the account. This is what Law No. 161-FZ of June 27, 2011 says! But such a return can only be made if the notification is sent “no later than the day following the day of receipt of notification of the transaction from the money transfer operator.”

Due to the lack of SMS messages, your situation does not fall under the usual scheme of actions, i.e. She's out of control! You could not find out in a timely manner about the debiting of funds from the Sberbank-Maestro “Social” card, since Sberbank, for some reason unknown to you, did not send an SMS notification, and as a result, you could no longer notify the bank.

How to return money to the card in your situation? Since time has been lost, it is now necessary to send the bank not the usual notification of an unauthorized transaction, but a statement - a claim for reimbursement of funds to the account, since the unauthorized debiting of funds from the card account was due to their fault. The application must indicate that you did not receive an SMS regarding the debit of funds, therefore, it is possible to find out about the debited funds in a timely manner and notify the bank within the prescribed period in accordance with clause 9 of the Federal Law of the Russian Federation dated June 27, 2011 N 161-FZ "On National payment system" you couldn't. Sberbank must consider your claim and refund the funds, or refuse to return the funds to you, citing some reasons. In cases where the bank refuses to restore funds, a statement of claim already to the prosecutor's office.

And one more thing - before receiving your next pension, you need to change your card number and PIN code. If you do not have time to replace it, it is better to block the card to prevent repeated unauthorized debiting of funds. You don’t know who carried out the write-off, and you have no guarantee that write-off attempts will not be repeated. This is also provided for by law:

To make it clear why we are talking about compensation for losses caused to you, let's look at how the law talks about this. So, on January 1, 2014, it came into force, which imposes a number of obligations on banks.

Thus, according to the law, operators (banks) must provide their clients with the opportunity to control the progress of each transaction they carry out, namely:

The money transfer operator is obliged to inform the client about the completion of each transaction using an electronic means of payment by sending the client a corresponding notification in the manner established by the agreement with the client (Article 9, Part 4 - N 161-FZ of June 27, 2011).
The money transfer operator is obliged to ensure that the client can send him a notification about the loss of an electronic means of payment and (or) about its use without the client’s consent (Article 9, Part 5 - N 161-FZ of June 27, 2011).

The money transfer operator is obliged to record notifications sent to the client and received from the client, and also store the relevant information for at least three years (Article 9, Part 6 - N 161-FZ of June 27, 2011).

If the money transfer operator does not fulfill the obligation to inform the client about the transaction completed in accordance with Part 4 of this article, the money transfer operator is obliged to reimburse the client for the amount of the transaction about which the client was not informed and which was carried out without the client’s consent (Article 9 part 13).

It turns out that the bank was obliged to send you an SMS message, record and store this information for a long time. This is what Sberbank must now prove to you, having received a claim from you. Confirmation of the presence or absence of SMS messages can be provided by the telecommunications company providing you with services cellular communications(at the request of the prosecutor's office).

If the bank admits that the SMS message was not sent, then, in accordance with Part 13 of Article of the Law, it is obliged to compensate you for the damage.

Article 9 of the Federal Law of the Russian Federation dated June 27, 2011 N 161-FZ “On the National Payment System” provides a clear procedure for interaction between the bank and the client when using an electronic means of payment without the client’s consent:

In case of loss of an electronic means of payment and (or) its use without the client’s consent, the client is obliged to send a corresponding notification to the money transfer operator in the form provided for in the contract immediately after discovering the fact of the loss of the electronic means of payment and (or) its use without the client’s consent, but no later the day following the day of receipt from the money transfer operator of a notification about the completed transaction (Article 9, paragraph 11).

After the money transfer operator receives a client’s notification in accordance with “Part 11” of this article, the money transfer operator is obliged to reimburse the client for the amount of the transaction performed without the client’s consent after receiving the specified notice (Article 9, Clause 12).

The interaction between the bank and the client when an unauthorized payment is detected looks like this:

1. The bank processes the payment and immediately sends an SMS notification to the client.


2. If the payment was made without the client’s consent, the latter immediately sends a corresponding notification to the money transfer operator in the form provided for in the contract.


3. The money transfer operator is obliged to reimburse the client for the amount of the transaction performed without his consent.

The scheme is very simple, but it has one significant flaw. There are no guarantees that the SMS notification or SMS message reached the recipients! And checking this is difficult, almost impossible. Therefore, after sending an SMS notification about a debit of funds carried out by the bank and unauthorized by you, visit your bank and duplicate your SMS notification with your statement if the funds are not returned to the account within 1 or 2 hours.

In connection with the adoption of Federal Law 161 On the national payment system, many bank card holders, as well as banks, breathed a sigh of relief. Indeed, with increasing cases of fraud with bank cards, rules have emerged regulating these relations, in particular disputes related to transactions carried out without the client’s consent. But with the advent and application of these provisions, conflicts also appeared, allowing them to be interpreted in different ways.

So, let’s look at Article 9, which is designed to regulate the use of electronic means of payment and imposes on the bank the obligation to inform and notify the client about all transactions performed.

The notification procedure and method are established by agreement with the bank. Wherein this service There may be a charge from the bank. By refusing the information service, the client violates the provisions of Part 13 of Article 5, thereby reducing his chances to a minimum in case of controversial situations with the bank. Using this service, on the contrary, increases the client’s chances of returning funds written off illegally. The most common notification method today is SMS notification.

In accordance with Part 11 of Article 9, the client is obligated to notify the bank of disagreement with the transaction no later than the day following the day of notification of the transaction received from the bank.

The bank has a notification method assigned to it; often the client must personally contact the office with a statement of disagreement with the transactions carried out. This method Taking into account the specifics of the investigation of these cases and the work of bank employees, it remains the most effective for the client, but at the same time not the most convenient. For example, if the client has learned about an illegal transaction and is abroad. The application submitted to the bank by the client must be certified in the appropriate way, this may be the stamp and signature of an employee.

Clause 8 of Article 9 imposes an obligation on the bank to consider a statement of disagreement and provide a response on the results within 30-60 days.

Clause 15 of Article 9 obliges the bank to reimburse the amount of a transaction performed without the client’s consent, unless the bank, in turn, proves that the client violated the terms of use payment card. The procedure for use is determined by the bank itself, and in fact is a lifeline. So, in the process of proof, the bank operates on the fact that the client did not ensure the safety and security of information. Many court decisions in favor of banks are based on the following formulations: “the client did not ensure the safety of the PIN code, thereby violating the terms of the contract.”

IN judicial practice There is also no consensus; there are court decisions that contradict each other. Thus, in identical controversial situations and when applying the same rules of law, the court of Moscow makes a decision in favor of the bank, the court of St. Petersburg in favor of the client. In conclusion, it can be noted that the process of proving controversial transactions in court is complex; this is only a part that provides tools and opportunities for both banks and their clients.