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[Alpha Biz=(Chicago) Reporter Paul Lee] It is the first time that a bank that provides won accounts to a local virtual asset (cryptocurrency) exchange has lost in connection with voice phishing crimes.
K-Bank, which provides won accounts to Upbit, the nation's No. 1 company, recently lost a compensation suit filed by a voice phishing victim.
According to the legal and blockchain industry on the 19th, the Seoul Central District Court on the 10th accepted some of the plaintiffs' opinions in a damage suit filed by voice phishing victims against K-Bank and Upbit operator Dunamu and ruled that the defendant K-Bank should pay damages worth KRW 50 million.
Earlier on August 3, 2021, the victim received a voice phishing call from an unspecified person and began to deposit it into a K-Bank account linked to Upbit on the same day.
The next day, the victim began buying bitcoin from Upbit and transferred 37.93983 bitcoins (BTC), which amounted to about 1.4515 billion won, to voice phishing-related accounts 14 times by August 21.
However, the last day bitcoin was transferred from the victim's account to the criminal account was on the 21st, and the victim reported the voice phishing content to the Financial Supervisory Service at around 12:30 p.m. on the 20th, the previous day. Since then, the victim's bank account exposed to voice phishing crimes has been suspended by K-Bank at around 3:34 p.m. on the same day.
However, due to a hotline error between K-Bank and Dunamu, bitcoin worth about 515.1 million won was transferred from the victim's account to the voice phishing account on the 21st, the next day.
The victim asked Dunamu, the operator of K-Bank and Upbit, for this part, saying, "The amount of damage increased due to a hotline error between the two companies."
According to the ruling, K-Bank suspended the victim's K-Bank account linked to Upbit on the 20th and sent a notification message to the victim at around 3:48 p.m. saying, "The bank account was suspended under the Special Act on Telecommunication Financial Fraud."
Later, according to K-Bank's claim, they notified Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, of a "notification of reporting telecommunications financial fraud" by specifying the bank account in question at around 4:10 p.m. on the same day.
However, there was a difference of opinion between K-bank and Dunamu in this area. Dunamu claimed that it was notified of the notification of telecommunications financial fraud related to the account around 8:27 pm on the 23rd. It has been three days and four hours and 17 minutes since K-Bank claimed.
At the time K-Bank claims, the court judged that it could not listen to K-Bank's claim because there was no data that K-Bank sent the notification to Dunamu or that it received the notification from Dunamu.
As a result, the court only held K-Bank responsible for the damage claimed by the voice phishing victims, not the two companies.
However, although the court is responsible for damages caused by the negligence of K-Bank's actions, the court ordered K-Bank to pay 154.5 million won in damages out of 515.1 million won in damages withdrawn from the victim's Upbit account on the 21st, citing that "the plaintiff took measures such as purchasing bitcoin before identifying the contents of the notification message." The court cited 50 million won, some of the claims the plaintiff had hoped for.
According to the industry, Upbit and K-Bank have been promoting a smooth service collaboration system since June 2020 by forming a close hotline.
However, according to the ruling, the hotlines of the two companies have loopholes, just as the timing of sending and receiving hotlines between each other is different.
In the end, the two companies have established an automated system for reporting crimes such as voice phishing since 2022.
AlphaBIZ 김지선(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
