Bradesco will have to compensate Pix kidnap victim

The TJ-SP (São Paulo Court of Justice) ordered Bradesco to reimburse a client who was a victim of the ‘Pix kidnapping’ in São Paulo. The bank will have to pay BRL 31,700, considering an indemnity of BRL 26,700 for material damage, referring to the amount that was not returned, plus BRL 5,000 for moral damages.

The 25-year-old businessman who filed the suit was with a friend inside a parked vehicle in the Campo Limpo neighborhood, in the south zone of the capital of São Paulo, when they were approached by two armed men in May 2021. One of the criminals took over the direction of the car and they were taken to a dimly lit square.

Hostage by the robbers for about 1.5 hours, the businessman was forced to provide the passwords for his banking application and to make transfers, in addition to handing his card over to the criminals. In all, the transactions totaled around R$35,000, but the victim managed to recover only R$8,605 two days after the crime.

​According to lawyer Fadi Georges Assy, the businessman was forced to create a Pix key to make the transactions, as he still did not use the instant transfer service. He also had the bank card used in the robbers’ card machine.

Sought by the report, the press office of Bradesco reported that it does not comment on cases that are being processed in court. There is still recourse.

In the action, Bradesco’s defense argued that it could not be held responsible for the transfers, since the crime took place outside the branches of the agencies. The Court of Justice, however, denied the bank’s appeal, considering that its system failed to identify fraud.

Judge Jairo Brazil, from the 15th Chamber of Private Law of the TJ-SP, maintained the understanding of the first instance, which guaranteed effective responsibility for the bank and understood that the “poor provision of banking services” contributed to the crime.

“Banking transactions carried out through coercion by criminals, in a short period of time, in sequence and in considerable amounts. The banking institution’s fraud detection system is flawed, as it should have accused the carrying out of illicit transactions and prevented their execution”, says an excerpt. of the sentence.

Pix kidnapping action is pioneering, says lawyer

The businessman’s representative, lawyer Fadi Georges Assy, says that the Court accepted the argument that the bank disrespected the Consumer Protection Code and understood that the case fell within the scope of precedent 479 of the STJ (Superior Court of Justice), which defines that the financial institutions have to bear the consequences related to security breaches during banking operations.

Assy says this is one of the first decisions favoring a victim of the crime of lightning kidnapping and Pix theft. According to the lawyer, in the court decision, the judge cited similar cases in which the Court upheld the lawsuit filed by clients against the banks, but which did not involve instant transfer technology.

“We understand that this process created a jurisprudence. The decision also serves to reinforce the need for financial institutions to modernize and offer more security”, he says.

In the initial action, the businessman’s defense had asked for compensation of R$ 20 thousand for moral damages.