A 70-year-old pensioner from central Israel fell victim to a sophisticated scam: unknown individuals posing as police officers convinced him to hand over his credit cards and personal information, and managed to take out a loan in his name of NIS 95,900 from Bank Hapoalim.
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In addition, the fraudsters managed to withdraw a total of more than 78,000 additional shekels from his accounts from various ATMs across the country.
The fraud occurred in February 2024, when the pensioner received a phone call from a woman who identified herself as Maya Friedman, an officer in the Cyber Division of the Israel Police, claiming that Bank Hapoalim had asked the police to warn him of attempts to hack his account.
To convince the pensioner of the truth of her words, the impostor gave him precise and confidential details from his personal account, including financial transactions that had been carried out shortly before.
Immediately afterwards, the impostor informed him that a police car was on its way to his house to collect his credit cards, cancel them, and protect his account.
The pensioner, who believed that the incident was indeed being handled by the police, gave his cards to two men who posed as police officers and appeared at his doorstep, not before erasing, as they instructed, the security numbers on the back of the cards.
In the hours that followed, the crooks took over the pensioner's accounts and took out an online loan in his name from Bank Hapoalim, in the amount of approximately 95,000 shekels - an amount 20 times higher than his monthly income.
In addition, the fraudsters managed to withdraw a total of more than 78,000 shekels from various ATMs across the country - in the cities of Nesher, Haifa and Netanya - at particularly unusual times, sometimes in the middle of the night and within a few minutes of each other.
In addition, the fraudsters attempted to make a transaction using the credit card, but despite the relatively low amount - 3,000 shekels - the fraud department of the K.A.L. company did not authorize the operation and blocked the card.
When he discovered the unusual movements in his accounts, the pensioner contacted Bank Hapoalim, where he was told that it was a scam. As soon as he heard this, the pensioner canceled all of his credit cards, preventing the fraudsters from swindling him out of an additional 36,000 shekels that were in the approval process.
Immediately after realizing that a large amount of money had been stolen from him, and a huge loan had been taken out in his name, the pensioner contacted his bank branch at Bank Hapoalim and requested an immediate refund of the money.
In addition, the pensioner filed a complaint about fraud with the Israel Police.
Despite his request, the bank branch refused to return the money, claiming that he voluntarily gave his cards and personal details to the fraudsters, and therefore the responsibility fell solely on him.
Subsequently, the bank branch insisted on full repayment of the loan that was fraudulently taken out in his name, and offered him to spread it out over ten years at a high interest rate (prime + 1%). If he refused to do so, legal proceedings would be initiated against him.
In light of the bank's conduct, the pensioner contacted attorneys Mariana Lee and Yoav Savrov, who filed a detailed complaint with Bank Hapoalim's Public Relations Department.
In the complaint, the lawyers emphasized the serious failures in the bank's conduct, and in particular the fact that the loan taken out in the pensioner's name was approved in complete violation of Directive 311 of the Supervisor of Banks, which requires a thorough examination of the customer's repayment capacity.
In addition, the lawyers noted the dramatic gap between the rapid approval of this loan and a much smaller loan, in the amount of 40,000 shekels, that the pensioner had previously taken out, which was approved only after in-depth examinations and the signing of guarantors.
The lawyers also claimed that the personal and confidential information that came into the hands of the fraudsters, from the pensioner's account, could only have leaked from within the bank or as a result of a hack into its systems - which constitutes a serious security failure - for which the liability was assumed by the registry.
Despite the reasoned letter, Bank Hapoalim rejected the complaint, and continued to adhere to the position that responsibility for the incident lies solely with the customer.
At this stage, the lawyers filed an official complaint with the Supervisor of Banks at the Bank of Israel - in which they pointed out serious violations by Bank Hapoalim of legal provisions and proper banking procedures.
And so, only in light of the intervention of the Bank of Israel, did Bank Hapoalim comply, cancel the demand to repay the loan, and agree to return to the pensioner most of the funds that were fraudulently taken from him, while crediting his account with approximately 43 thousand shekels, as well as canceling the balance of the loan, thus saving the pensioner a total of approximately 100 thousand shekels.
Attorney Mariana Lee notes that following the incident, banks in Israel began sending their customers detailed warning messages in Russian as well, in order to prevent further fraud cases from occurring in the future.
"This is a dangerous sting operation, which the Israeli public should be aware of, an operation aimed primarily at an older and naive population. Victims of this sophisticated sting operation could lose hundreds of thousands of shekels due to a minor mistake resulting mainly from a lack of knowledge," says Attorney Lee.
According to her, banks must strengthen their security systems against fraudulent practices, and refuse to approve loans without strict identity verification and taking appropriate collateral. "Banks must also stop suspicious withdrawals of funds, and not allow withdrawals of tens of thousands of shekels, made one after the other, over the course of a single day - as occurred in the case in question," argues Attorney Lee.
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