SCB account holders report erroneously debited amounts

KARACHI: Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) account holders are complaining of a series of erroneous charges on their debit cards over the last few months of this year, it was learnt on Wednesday. 

According to the details, a common trend that the affected customers noticed in these transactions is that their accounts are charged for multiple payments on Apple Store, Uber, and Netflix. 

I lost 11 K in unknown payments made to NETFLIX one after another when I don’t have its account. I took the matter multiple times but Standard Charter failed to come up with an answer. And yes no OTP was sent before the payments

— Sarah Atiq | سارہ عتیق (@sarahatiq) July 27, 2022

Profit approached SCB to find out what the actual issue is, why multiple customers are coming out with similar complaints; what SCB is doing to address the issue, what has already been done to rectify and compensate customers; and what SCB is doing to avoid further problems of this sort.

In response, SCB’s communication team stated: “For reasons of client confidentiality, we cannot share any details. Rest assured, we have robust processes and procedures in place and our systems have not been affected.”

It may be mentioned here that customers are usually supposed to enter their One Time Pin (OTP) when a transaction is made. However, customers are not getting OTP requests for these random charges to their accounts whereas refunds for such charges can take up to 120 days depending on the card operator’s investigation into the matter.

Speaking with Profit on whether  customers were entitled to compensation in addition to getting a refund, Mubariz Siddiqui, lawyer and founder of Carbon Law, a law firm that focuses on startups and venture financing, said, “The spirit of compensation is to cover for any harm incurred. The user would have to establish actual loss.” 

“It remains to be seen whether the actual loss would include a loss incurred as a result of late charges due to insufficient funds following these series of wrong debits,” added Siddiqui.