Bank of Ireland Has Idiot Customers
And Bank of Ireland is not too smart either.
Several BoI customers fell for a phishing scam, which is when you respond to an email that asks you to go to a link and provide your login details to correct some purported error in your account. Of course, the website is actually owned by identity thieves that steal the account credentials and then proceed to empty the account of money.
So these idiot customers complained to the bank, saying that it was somehow BoI’s fault that their own IQ’s were so low that they would fall for such a ruse. They even threatened to sue.
BoI responded by compensating the victims. They put the money back into these idiots’ accounts.
From the Register here:
Bank of Ireland has agreed to compensate victims of a recent phishing scam, backtracking from its earlier position.
The bank had initially refused to refund victims, who lost about 160,000 to scammers after receiving the fake emails.
For its part Bank of Ireland has refused to comment on the cases, releasing a general statement on phishing instead.
The nine customers who were conned out of the cash had threatened to sue the bank for compensation if their money wasn’t returned. But now experts fear that there could be a surge in phishing cases, encouraged by the compensation paid out by Bank of Ireland.
Conor Flynn, technical director of Rits, said the move was essentially a goodwill gesture by the bank. However, he warned that people may feel less threatened by the scams in future as a result.
This is such a bad move by BoI. Yes, its sad that the idiots fell for the ruse, but they should have known better. And now that BoI is caving, this sends a bad signal to ID Thieves and Phishers, that its okay to steal money because the banks will just pony up the dough to the victims.
But another way to look at it is that this is a crime against the bank rather than an individual citizen. Now the bank will work with law enforcement to track down the theives. With the bank on the case, they will have a greater chance of success to nab the thieves than any of the individual account holders would have had.
