Watchdog taking legal action against HSBC over scams

For the first time in Australia, a bank is being sued over its handling of customers being swindled out of their own money.

Australian Securities and Investment Commission is suing HSBC Australia over allegedly mishandling scam claims, leaving hundreds of customers out of pocket and locked out of their accounts for months.

It’s alleged HSBC Australia mishandled 950 reports of unauthorised transactions, with total customers losses reaching $23 million.

Some customers reportedly lost more than $90,000 each.

The Commissions lawsuit highlights significant delays in HSBC’s fraud investigation process, alleging it took the bank an average of 145 days to respond to scam reports.

During this time, affected customers were locked out of their accounts for an average of 95 days, with one customer unable to access their funds for 542 days.

ASIC Deputy Chair Sarah Court said the bank failed to protect its customers.

‘We allege that from at least January 2023, HSBC Australia was aware of the risks of unauthorised transactions occurring and that there were gaps in their fraud controls,” Ms Court said on Monday.

“This resulted in some customers getting scammed out of $90,000 or more.

‘We allege HSBC Australia compounded the problem by failing to comply with its obligations under the ePayments Code and let its customers down when they needed their help the most, on average taking 145 days to investigate customers’ reports that they had been scammed.’

ASIC also raised concerns that HSBC Australia failed to promptly restore customers’ full access to their bank accounts, on average taking 95 days to do so.

One example was one customer did not have full access restored for 542 days.

HSBC Australia has previously faced criticism over its handling of fraud claims with customers and advocacy groups earlier this year raising concerns over slow responses and poor communication.

The bank was ordered to compensate a scam victim in October, after what the court described HSBC Australia as being “dragged kicking and screaming” through the legal process.