Rabobank forced to pay €100,000 to couple who were victims of debit card fraud

Rabobank are being forced to pay 100,000 euros to a couple who were the victim of debit card fraud. The Appeals Committee of the Complaints Institute Kifid finds that, in contrast to the The Dutch Foundation for Complaints and Dispute Resolution, "it is wrong to let the consumers pay the price entirely.” In total, the couple lost more than 148,000 euros.

The victims lost the money when fraudsters pretended to be a part of the bank’s alarm center. The fraudsters convinced the couple to hand over their debit cards and the PIN codes to the cards before telling them to assure a genuine Rabobank employee that there was nothing wrong with the first transfers of 1,000 and 1,200 euros.

Rabobank only registered the first money transfers as suspicious. "After this, the extremely special and unusual course of the immediately subsequent payment transactions remains unnoticed,” Kifid wrote on their website.

The fraudsters kept the woman on the phone for hours so that she would not see the notifications of her withdrawal limit being reached. In that period, 75 to 80 illegal payments were made using the debit cards.

“The Appeals Committee concludes that the circumstances in which the debit cards were used illegally give reason to limit the liability of the consumers," according to Kifid.

In addition to the 100,000 euros, Rabobank must also pay 5,000 euros for legal costs. A spokesperson for Rabobank said that the bank has taken note of the ruling. "After careful consideration, we have followed it," he added.