Banks in Poland prey on victims? The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection will check 15 institutions

The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection initiated 6 proceedings against Alior Bank, Bank Handlowy, PKO BP, Pekao SA, Plus Bank and Bank Ochrony Środowiska. According to officials, they settle accounts with consumers incorrectly. In total, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection is already conducting 15 proceedings against banks.

The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection will look at banks

The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection initiated proceedings due to numerous signals from consumers. They show that banks do not comply with the regulations related to the return of funds in the event of unauthorized transactions, e.g. as a result of fraud or password theft. According to applicable law, banks have one business day to do so. Meanwhile, in many cases they are supposed to deviate from this obligation.

There are two exceptions to this rule. The first is when the consumer applies for a refund more than 13 months after the unauthorized transaction. The second case concerns a situation in which the bank has reasonable suspicion of fraud on the part of the consumer, about which it must inform the police or prosecutor’s office.

Banks do not always fulfill their obligation to return money to injured consumers. They refuse or return them after the deadline. Misleading information provided in response to submitted complaints is also a problem. We have brought further charges against banks that do not settle accounts with consumers when they report an unauthorized transaction and are misleading. Our activities already concern a total of 15 banks. I would like to remind you that for violating the collective interests of consumers, we can impose a fine on the entrepreneur of up to 10%. turnover.

– says Tomasz Chróstny, President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection.

Banks are supposed to use various ways to avoid returning the money. Most often, they claim that all the necessary data has been provided in the system, so in their opinion the transaction has been correctly authenticated. In addition, some banks (Alior Bank and Plus Bank) introduce limits on the number of complaints and limit the time for reporting them to only 120 days.

In the case of Alior Bank and PKO BP, there is also a conditional refund, where the money is returned to the consumer’s account, but after a negative response to the complaint, it is withdrawn again. In turn, PKO BP, in response to complaints, is to use language so complicated that the customer is unable to understand why the complaint was rejected.

All institutions may be fined up to 10%. turnover, which would be a huge amount for all banks.