Banco Provincia ordered to indemnify victim of phishing scam

The Second Chamber of Appeals in Civil and Commercial Matters of La Plata has upheld a ruling ordering Banco Provincia to indemnify a 40-year-old woman following a successful phishing scam.

The victim was defrauded in November 2022 after being redirected from a legitimate telecommunications billing inquiry to a fraudulent Twitter account. The attackers manipulated the victim into providing her home banking credentials and security tokens, allowing them to liquidate her US dollar savings and transfer approximately $278,500 to third-party accounts.

The court rejected the bank's appeal, determining that its security and monitoring mechanisms were insufficient to detect and interrupt the atypical transactions, which were completed in under 15 minutes. The court ordered the bank to pay $5 million pesos in damages—comprising $3 million for moral damages and $2 million for punitive damages—and to restitute US$ 1,661 with a 6% annual interest rate.