LScammers have a “ constant inventiveness »: this observation was made, on June 12, by the heads of the joint division of the Prudential Control and Resolution Authority (ACPR) and the Financial Markets Authority (AMF), responsible for protecting the interests of clients in these sectors, when they presented their 2023 report.
Scammers approach savers – often single people – on the Internet and persuade them to place money in fake savings accounts at a staggering rate of 9%, on Forex. (contraction of foreign exchange market, “currency market”) or on the cryptocurrency market. They also lead them to invest in projects presented as extremely profitable: car parks equipped with electrical terminals, places in accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people (Ehpad), hydrogen, etc.
Those who give in to scammers, despite prevention campaigns, carried out in particular on the site abe-infoservice.frnever recover their funds.
They can only turn against their bank, accusing it of “breach of its contractual duty of vigilance”faced with a movement ” unusual “ Or ” unnatural “ from their account: transfer of a very high sum in relation to their resources, their assets, or their profile as a prudent person who does not take risks…
Consistent operations
The bank then responds that it has only executed an order with no apparent anomaly and that it has no business interfering in the affairs of its clients.
The latter then invoke a “failure to comply with the enhanced vigilance obligation”which is imposed by the monetary and financial code (items L561-5 et seq.), in the event of suspicion of money laundering and terrorist financing: the bank must ensure that its clients’ transactions are consistent with their profile, otherwise it must not execute them.
But, on the one hand, fraud is not always synonymous with money laundering or terrorism.
On the other hand, since April 28, 2004 (02-15.054), the Court of Cassation prohibits proceedings on this basis: Marielle Cohen-Branche, then rapporteur of her judgment and today mediator of the AMF, recalled this in her report for the year 2023 : “ The fight against money laundering does not protect individual interests, but the general interest. »
This case law, Me Arnaud Delomel, lawyer for the consumer defense association ADCFrancespecialized in the fight against international scams, disputes it: “It is not based on any text: contrary to what the Court judges, it is not because the client must not be informed of the suspicious transaction reports to Tracfin that he does not have the right to invoke the bank failures »he says.
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