Banks began to demand to come to the office with relatives to unfreeze the account.
Banks began to require the presence of relatives to unfreeze accounts that were blocked to protect users from fraudsters. A client of Alfa-Bank faced this situation, she told Izvestia about it.
Muscovite Angela (name changed) issued an inappropriate loan and wanted to transfer money to her account in another financial institution. However, the operation was suspended, and a bank employee called her. And after answering questions about the loan, access to the account was frozen. She was asked to come to the department in person to unlock it. But even after that, they refused to unfreeze the bill, demanding that she come with her son.
The Association for the Development of Financial Literacy (ARFG) confirmed that they are aware of similar cases when clients had their accounts blocked to protect them from fraudsters and were asked to come with relatives to unfreeze them. This can happen in atypical situations if the bank sees risks for the client, explained Pavel Nikitin, an expert of the ARFG ProFiT project. In his opinion, in certain cases, for example, with clients of retirement age, this comprehensive measure may be justified.
Recently, in order to verify the client's free will, credit organizations have actually begun to ask to come to the branch with a close relative, said trial lawyer Ilya Vasilchuk.
We are talking about obvious excesses in the application of anti-fraud measures, says Polina Lebedeva, a lawyer and founder of the Constant Academy. Probably, banks, fearing responsibility, show excessive zeal and apply measures that go beyond the established limits, the expert emphasized. No law gives a credit institution the right to require customers to bring their relatives with them.
Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:
Family prisoners: banks require to come to the office with relatives to unfreeze the account
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
