An elderly woman seeking to recoup €8,000 lost to scammers was instead found to have acted with “gross negligence” after she called the bank to raise her withdrawal limit after her account had already been drained of €6,000.

A report by the Arbiter for Financial Services reveals how a sophisticated scam preyed upon the victim’s desire to make easy money in order to manipulate her behaviour and take control of her device.

The scam began when the woman saw a Facebook post advertising an investment in Tesla stock. A few days after making an initial investment of €250, she was contacted by phone to increase her stake.

However, the victim became suspicious, and instead asked for her investment to be refunded.

The scammers then told her to open an account with the crypto exchange Binance, and asked her to increase the funds available in her Bank of Valleta account “to confirm that I actually some money prior to giving me the refund.”

The victim transferred €10,000 to the BOV account, at which point the scammers stole the newly available funds, a process the Arbiter rather colourfully put as “il-frodisti għamlu festa bi flusha u żarmawlha l-kont f’affari ta’ ftit siegħat.”

In less than three hours, the scammers successfully transferred €8,000 across six transfers, while another 17 transfers of a combined value of €47,650 were blocked by the bank.

The victim’s claim for compensation from BOV was complicated when it transpired that she actually called the bank to ask for her daily withdrawal limit to be increased.

The Arbiter noted that BOV had actually blocked a number of transfers after €6,000 had been withdrawn, only for the victim to authorise additional transfers over a phone call.

Although the victim claimed not to have been informed of the large transfers from her account, the bank rebutted that an SMS was sent for every transfer made.

Additionally, once the bank noticed that transfers were being attempted after the daily withdrawal limit had been reached, the bank tried to call the victim, who did not answer. The bank then temporarily blocked her card.

Just 15 minutes later, the victim called the bank back and confirmed that she was knowingly carrying out the transactions and that they were genuine, leading the bank to unblock her card.

Twenty minutes later, she called the bank again and requested an increase in her withdrawal limit, saying she needed to effect payments to Binance.

“This further confirmed to the bank that she had the intention to make the transactions.”

The bank also noted that the transactions were approved through the 3D Secure app, “thus her biometrics or unique code were used, meaning that she was an active participant in the transactions.”

BOV said that the victim “had the choice to decide with whom to invest her money and cannot expect the bank to take responsibility for actions which resulted from her own choices.

“Moreover, even when she realised that she was being scammed, she still continued communicating with the third party and authorising the transactions instructed, instead of immediately contacting the bank.”

The Arbiter found that BOV had conducted effective monitoring of the transactions and taken appropriate action, and that the lost funds were the result of “gross negligence”.

It therefore rejected the victim’s complaint to recoup the money lost.