- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Ian Williams wakes up one morning to find $1,338 has been stolen from his account via two Google Pay transactions. Two years later, he’s taking on NAB at the Supreme Court, with no lawyers to help him.
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I can’t comment on this case at all, but I will say that my father in law was totally scammed out of $19k and NAB blocked the transfer. NAB literally saved my in-laws from losing nearly $20k. The scammers were very convincing, they basically got remote access to his PC and from there accessed his online banking.
So, offset this story with a good one for NAB.
These people are willing participants in getting scammed (providing MFA codes etc), then they blame the bank. How about some personal responsibility Ian?
Williams had calculated that $1,338 was about 5.5 per cent of his annual pension.
And $379.05 million was 5.5 per cent of NAB’s 2022 profit after tax.
“Things need to be proportionate,” he said.
In those documents, Williams claimed the bank:
- Failed to secure his banking credentials and transaction data.
- Failed to use its fraud detection protocols, which he said would have flagged the two transactions as fraudulent.
- Breached its duty to “protect customers from unauthorised transactions”.
- Failed to comply with the ASIC ePayments Code by not conducting a fair and transparent investigation or reasons for its decision to not pay Williams back.
Williams said the reason he was suing for the vast amount of $380 million was because he believed NAB demonstrated “a systemic abuse of power”, knowledge of his vulnerability, “and deliberate disregard for fair dealing”.
The bank had about four weeks to respond.
What a boss move
Is this math based on any logic within the law? Typically you should just sue for the damages you sustained + costs, I don’t see how the fact that the bank has a lot of money would change that, unless there’s some kind of law prescribing this?
I just had a look at it. Note that this is the first source i came across. It seems to be in line with the arguments of Williams
https://legalvision.com.au/4-things-to-know-about-exemplary-damages/
Exemplary damages are one type of damages available for recovery in civil disputes. Sometimes referred to as punitive damages, these types of damages are the most rarely awarded damages in Australia. This is because the court awards exemplary damages with the purpose of punishing a defendant, which contrasts with the Australian courts’ emphasis on using the legal system to provide compensation.
In general, damages are used to compensate a party for a loss and should aim to put them in the position they would have been in, had the wrongdoing not occurred. This means that usually, the court should not award a party more damages than their actual loss. In fact, the court must be cautious when assessing damages to ensure there is not an element of punishment (a punitive element) to them.
The court awards exemplary damages as a form of punishment. Further, their purpose is to deter the defendant and the broader public from malicious behaviour or conduct. Typically, this applies where that conduct causes harm, warning them that such conduct will attract punishment. Generally speaking, this behaviour will include certain elements, such as:
- malice;
- abuse of power;
- cruelty; or
- violence.
So it is possible that the court would follow the reasoning of Williams that the bank has abused its power in rushing to put the blame on him instead of investigating the fraud properly or taking measures to prevent the fraud. As bank customers seem to be regular victims of such fraud and the bank seems to generally just deny the claims instead of prevent the fraud, the argument of “abuse of power” and “malice” seems plausible to me. (Who is not a legal expert, leave alone in Australia)
If the court follows the reasoning of Williams that the bank needs to be handed a punitive damage sentence to discourage it from abusing its powers against its customers, i find his calculation appropriate. His pension seems in line with typical pension rates in Australia and the damage from the fraud also seems to be in the usual range. So punishing the bank with a comparable relative damage doe snot seem unfair. One could argue that his calculation is still quite generous as he is targeting the banks profits after tax, while his pension has to cover everything, and his “disposable” income from the pension is much lower.
I see, interesting. Thanks for doing the research.
He’s asking for exemplary (punitive) damages - something that can be granted for egregious conduct as a way of scaring others from doing something similar. Since it’s supposed to scare banks into compliance the amount is not that crazy.
All or nothing, big balls
Catches the train and supports other principled causes:
Hate how NAB responded and hate old guy who got scammed and blames bank
When NAB told Williams he was responsible for the missing $1,338 on that cool spring morning back in 2022, he wasted little time trying to prove them wrong.
Obviously it wasn’t him, this was a shit investigation and should have shown up immediately, the fact he went way further than he needed to shows NAB were being dicks
Williams did receive text messages a few days before the fraudulent transaction went through, with a passcode for him to confirm he wanted to add his card to a new Google Pay account.
He was the one who fucked up ultimately
But there should be a heavier push on banks to deal with fraud and scams, if they don’t then people may as well use buttcoin, when you fall for a scam there it’s gone for good
