Warning/plea to Santander and other banks in this age of online/phone scams: You might get sued for not protecting customers
Santander Bank, N.A., headquarters at 75 State St., Boston
As we have been warning, there have been ever-increasing complaints this year of crooks, many of them foreign, crashing (sometimes with jarring sound effects) into the computers of people while they’re online. The very slick crooks claim, with very impressive “credentials,” to be from government agencies, and then they con and/or terrorize the victims into going to their banks and sending lots of money to various plausible-sounding places, where it is stolen.
The banks might mildly suggest to the anxious customers that they not do so, but then they send along the money anyway. That’s what a Santander Bank branch in Providence did this year in a case I’m familiar with. But it is far from the only bank whose lack of rigor and skepticism helps fraudsters.
Banks should have to do far more – at least delay sending the money pending an investigation. And how about a week-long “cooling off’’ period for victims to calmly reconsider the situation. Further, banks should call in law enforcement before sending money in situations that scream fraud.
Policies need to be changed!
What’s a bank’s legal exposure in such outrageous cases, if any?
Do local Santander people follow the news?