Fraudsters steal Ukrainian woman's Kyivstar phone number and take out UAH 200.000 loan in her name through PrivatBank: what unexpected decision the court has ruled

A Ukrainian woman was able to force PrivatBank to return UAH 187,579 to her account, which was stolen by fraudsters who took possession of her Kyivstar phone number. After reissuing the number, they took out a substantial loan in her name.

This is stated in the materials of the Ruzhynskyi Raion Court of Zhytomyr Oblast. Thus, all money, including credit, were debited from the woman's account. The criminals also used instalment payment. "This led to her having a debt on her credit card #5168752007776308 in the amount of UAH 98450.61 and additional UAH 89128.45 due to instalment payment. Overall, it makes UAH 187579.06," the case file says.

The woman appealed to Kyivstar, PrivatBank, and the police. The bank refused to write off the loan and demanded a refund. At the same time, Kyivstar employees responded to her written request to investigate and find out how her phone was stolen, "This phone number belongs to another person, and therefore we cannot provide you any information."

The representative of PrivatBank stated in court that the woman had not properly fulfilled her duties as a client of the bank. The bank's representative, disputing the claims, explained that it is possible that the plaintiff herself participated in the disputed transactions or provided third parties with the information necessary for these transactions, so there are no grounds to sustain the claim.

Nevertheless, the court ruled that it is the bank that should compensate the stolen money. "The court concludes that the plaintiff has performed all the actions (defined in paragraph 6 of Section VI of the Regulation On the Procedure for Conducting Transactions with Letters of Credit by Banks) provided for in this case and has proved her innocence of the said actions, and therefore, as a card user, cannot be held liable for payment transactions," the court said in its decision.

According to Kyivstar's website, to restore the number, it is enough to name 8 digits of the PUK1 of the old SIM or 19 digits of the ICC and know the phone number. In addition, you can apply for restoration at a store branch.

As reported, PrivatBank has recently introduced a feature allowing users to add cards to the Apple Pay wallet without manually entering card details. To do this, open the Wallet application on your iPhone, click the "add card" button and hold your bank card to your smartphone.

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