By John Leyden for The Register. This story has
been reproduced with permission.
Halifax customer Alain Job sued the bank after he was held
liable for making eight disputed cash machine withdrawals from his
account. Job was left £2,100 out of pocket from the series of
withdrawals in February 2006 and launched a lawsuit after failing
to obtain a refund from the bank, or through arbitration.
Cases over "phantom withdrawals", where money is withdrawn from
bank ATMs without the card holder's permission and where card
details have not being divulged to third parties, are commonplace,
even in the UK.
Fraudulent withdrawal of money in UK accounts using cash
machines outside the UK are a growing problem. These default to
reading details from easy to forge magnetic stripes, which Chip and
PIN cards still contain.
But Chip and PIN was supposed to stop the use
of cloned cards, at least in UK ATMs. Chip and PIN is the UK's
iteration of the global EMV standard for
chip-based payment cards and acceptance devices, including point of
sale terminals and ATMs.
Job's case involved disputed withdrawals involving a Chip and
PIN card and UK's cash machines that would have read it. Because of
this, the case is the first to test UK bank's assurances over the
security and integrity of Chip and PIN in court.
At a one-day hearing in April at Nottingham County Court, Job
and his legal team argued his ATM card might have been cloned and
used to withdraw funds without any negligence on his part. Halifax
offered evidence from computer printouts of log files to support
its argument that Job's real card (and associated microchip) was
used to authorise the disputed transactions.
A judge found in favour of Halifax and dismissed the lawsuit in
a ruling issued on Thursday, Finextra reports.
Job's barrister, Stephen Mason, told IDG that Halifax had junked evidence that
might have ascertained if a cloned card was used. The original ATM
card and the Authorisation Request Cryptogram were destroyed by
Halifax.
Job, who faces legal bills of up to £50,000, is considering an
appeal.
© The Register
2009
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