The 2nd Civil Special Court of São José dos Pinhais overturned a lower court ruling and cleared Banco Votorantim S.A. of liability for a boleto fraud suffered by a customer. The court found that the consumer failed to take minimum due diligence measures when paying a fraudulent boleto generated by scammers, and that there was no service failure on the bank's part.
The lawsuit had been filed to declare the debt unenforceable and seek material and moral compensation, arguing that the bank should reimburse the amount paid to the criminal group. At the lower court level, the bank was ordered to return R$3,500.00 to the customer. However, on appeal, the decision was reversed.
The customer, who had a vehicle financing agreement with Banco Votorantim, attempted to pay an overdue installment and, to do so, contacted a phone number supposedly linked to the financial institution. During the call, the alleged representative transferred the conversation to WhatsApp, where a fraudulent boleto was sent for payment. After making the payment, the consumer realized she had been scammed, as the bank continued charging the outstanding installment. The paid amount was directed to a Mercado Pago account, but the actual recipient of the boleto was not identified in the proceedings.
The ruling found that Banco Votorantim had not breached any security duty and that the plaintiff had voluntarily provided her data to the scammers. Furthermore, the boleto contained clear inconsistencies, such as the absence of the financing contract identification and discrepancies in the amounts.
The court emphasized that financial institutions are indeed responsible for the security of their operations, but that this responsibility does not extend to situations where the consumer acts negligently by providing data to third parties and paying boletos without adequate verification.
Among the key points raised by the ruling: the fraudulent boleto lacked financing contract information, making the fraud detectable with minimal scrutiny; the customer provided her CPF to a third party without verifying the authenticity of the service channel; and the boleto's recipient was not the bank, but a Mercado Pago account belonging to third parties.
The court therefore granted Banco Votorantim's appeal, dismissed the plaintiff's claims, and denied the consumer's cross-appeal seeking double reimbursement and moral damages.
TJ/PR RI - 0020075-31.2023.8.16.0035
This post was summarized from the original ruling using ChatGPT version 4o, with human review.