We represent individuals and businesses across the country in claims against their banks for failure by the banks to prevent third-party fraudsters in cyberspace from completing the processing of wire transfers from the bank customer’s accounts. Wire transfers are a special type of transaction often called “bank to bank transfers” where the consumer requests its bank (the recipient bank) to transfer monies to another bank (the beneficiary bank), which then transfers the money to the account of the intended beneficiary within that beneficiary bank.
Wire transfers are prime targets for fraudsters in cyberspace because such transfers often involve significant amounts of money and are processed quickly for very specific purposes e.g. instantaneous wiring of monies by a buyer to the seller at a real estate closing to finalize the real estate transaction. While these transactions are convenient, the fraud must be caught quickly, or funds cannot be returned. Often, consumers are victims of a third-party scammer who portrays himself as a bank representative on the phone and deceives the consumer into providing confidential account information such as passwords or bank card numbers. When this happens, banks often refuse to return the funds to the consumer, arguing that the consumer caused its own loss by divulging the information. Fortunately, this is not the law. The bank must have in place and employ in good faith commercially reasonable security practices to counter such wire fraud risks. If they fail to prove their compliance, they are in violation of Section 4A of the Uniform Commercial Code and can be liable to the consumer for the return of these monies, even where the customer got duped and inadvertently divulged account information.
The attorneys at the Patterson Law Firm work painstakingly to obtain from the bank evidence of their security procedures to determine whether they employed competently such well-known security systems as multifactor authentication and computerized risk profile algorithms. Our attorneys have successfully proven that banks have failed to behave in a commercially reasonable manner. We have represented clients across the country on these wire fraud cases and have recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars for them.
If you have more questions about bank fraudulent wire contact James Bonebrake at jbonebrake@pattersonlawfirm.com or Call (312) 223-1699 for more information on how we can work for you!
