Brazilian bank ordered to repay R$ 200,000 to elderly scam victim

A Brazilian court has ordered a bank to reimburse R$ 200,000 to an elderly man who fell victim to a ‘fake call center’ scam. The victim was induced by fraudsters to believe his account was being compromised, leading him to withdraw his entire financial reserve and execute a single Pix transfer of R$ 200,000 to a third party after 9:00 PM.

Judge Théo Assuar Gragnano, of the 12th Civil Court of Santo Amaro in São Paulo, ruled that the bank failed to identify and interrupt these atypical transactions. The judge noted that while the established transfer limit for transactions after 9:00 PM was R$ 1,000, the institution permitted a transfer 200 times higher than that limit.

The bank argued that it conducts fraud prevention campaigns and that responsibility lay solely with the client for providing information to scammers. However, the court determined that the bank’s security mechanisms should have detected the deviation from the customer's profile and blocked the movement, particularly given the significant breach of the established transaction limits.