The court ordered Oschadbank to return 58 thousand hryvnias stolen by fraudsters to the client

The Rozdilnyanskyi District Court of Odessa Oblast ordered Oschadbank to return 58,000 hryvnias to a client that were debited from her credit card as a result of fraudulent transactions. One of the important pieces of evidence in the case was the data of the mobile operator Kyivstar.

These were two transactions of 29,000 hryvnias each, made on March 11, 2024. The woman claimed that she did not make these transfers and had never installed or used the Oschad 24/7 web banking.

The bank, however, insisted that the banking registration was confirmed by a one-time password sent to the client’s financial number. Oschadbank assumed that the woman could have used the OTP password herself or given it to third parties.

Login was made from someone else’s smartphone

During the consideration of the case, the court established that access to mobile banking at the time of debiting money was carried out from an atypical device – a Xiaomi Poco M4 Pro 4G smartphone, which, according to the case materials, did not belong to the plaintiff and was not in her use.

In addition, a few minutes after the transfers, Oschadbank itself restricted the card through the system for monitoring suspicious transactions with signs of fraud.

After the woman found out about the debt, she contacted the bank and the police. Criminal proceedings were opened on the fact of the incident.

Kyivstar data became evidence in the case

The court also requested information from the Kyivstar mobile operator.

The operator reported that during 2024, there was no independent replacement of the client’s SIM card, issuance of a duplicate or activation of a spare SIM card. Also, during March-April 2024, the number was not blocked by the operator’s equipment.

The totality of these and other circumstances did not confirm the bank’s position that the client herself facilitated the illegal transactions.

Oschadbank wanted to recover over 68 thousand hryvnias

At the same time, the bank demanded to recover 68,012 hryvnias of debt from the woman: 58 thousand hryvnias of principal and over 10 thousand hryvnias of interest.

However, the court completely refused to satisfy Oschadbank’s counterclaim.

During the consideration of the case, the court referred, in particular, to Article 1073 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, which provides for the bank’s obligation to return funds to the client in the event of their unjustified write-off.

The court also took into account the legal position of the Supreme Court, according to which, in the absence of proper evidence, doubts in such disputes should be interpreted mainly in favor of the consumer as the weaker party in relations with the bank.

What the court decided

The court ruled to recover from Oschadbank in favor of the client 58 thousand hryvnias debited from her account.

In addition, the bank must cancel the interest, penalty, fines and commissions accrued due to the disputed transactions. The court completely rejected Oschadbank’s demand to recover the loan debt from the woman.

The bank was also ordered to pay a court fee in favor of the state.

Thus, the mere fact of using the OTP password was not sufficient grounds for imposing liability on the client: the bank had to prove that it was her actions or inaction that led to illegal access to the funds.