Consult bank transactions and find an unauthorized payment through the bank card or online. In just one year, this type of displeasure has become the most reported by consumers to the Bank of Spain, above complaints associated with mortgages or commissions.
In 86% of cases this fraud has to do with the credit card, but there are many techniques to commit it. There is the man in the middle -intercepting a communication between client and company-, phishing -obtaining confidential information with impersonated calls or emails-, the CEO scam -impersonating a company executive- or the use of a website that actually doesn’t exist.
According to the Bank of Spain’s Complaints Report for 2022, one in three complaints filed with the institution last year had to do with this type of fraud. There were 10,361, 109% more than the previous year.
This figure is equivalent to almost a third of the 34,146 claims filed last year. In this modality, the consumer declares that they have not authorized a card or online payment that appeared in their checking account and demands its retrocession, considering that they have been victims of a scam.
Of these complaints, 86.1% refer to card operations and 13.9% to internet transfers. In 47% of the cases, the Bank of Spain has not been able to do anything because the matter is beyond its jurisdiction, in many cases because the user has been the victim of fraud in which they provide security data to a third party. .
“Fraud moves towards business segments where it can have a greater probability of success,” explains Alberto Ríos, the general director of Financial Conduct and Banknotes. One of the reasons is that “there has been a very substantial increase in card payments, with a growth volume of 800 million operations in one year, up to 7.3 billion.”
“It is not true that we have a problem with payments” and “the security of digital payments has been greatly reinforced, always seeking a balance between security measures and agility of the process,” Ríos clarifies. The number of cards issued in Spain is around 102 million, so the cases presented to the institution barely affect 0.01%. The Bank of Spain’s forecast is that in 2023 the number of claims for this type of fraud will stabilize.
Last year, card payments displaced mortgage formalization costs as the main reason for complaints. If fraud in card payments has gone from 4,955 to 10,361 complaints, complaints about mortgages have fallen from 5,907 to 1,401, that is, 76%.
The new regulation regarding the contractual relationship when signing mortgages explains, in the opinion of the Bank of Spain, the sharp decline in complaints associated with these loans.
Mortgages have actually gone from the first reason for complaint to the fourth. Maintenance commissions have also surpassed them, which have gone from 2,299 complaints to 3,732, and revolving credit contracts, despite falling from 3,771 to 1,420.
In fifth place and with a level very similar to the previous year, of 1,213 claims, are maintenance fees linked to mortgage loans.
Altogether, the 34,146 complaints processed last year by the Bank of Spain represent a decline of 0.5% compared to 2021, when the figure had doubled compared to the levels of 2020, the year in which the pandemic broke out.
Last year, complaints about inheritances also grew, by 9%, to 1,249, those about received and debits, by 71%, to 415, and those linked to checks, bills and promissory notes, by 29%, to 200. deadline were only the subject of 49 complaints.
The Bank of Spain assures that in 83.7% of the complaints the client has had their demands resolved before the authorities. To complain, citizens can do so through the virtual office, in person or by mail.
There have also been complaints related to the new code of good practice to cushion the effect of interest rate rises on mortgage holders.
The complaints, in this case corresponding to the current year, have amounted to 468 until September, a volume that the Bank of Spain considers small. To date, some 30,000 people have signed up to the code.
