Fraud victim loses case to bank ruled to bear no blame

A local resident, who fell victim to a text scam that cheated him of 35,000 yuan ($5565), has lost his case against a Chinese bank, which he blamed for his missing funds, a local court ruled Tuesday.

China Construction Bank (CCB) was sued over the incident by the man, surnamed Xing, who argued that the transfer he made from one of the bank's ATMs two years ago only went through because of a machine malfunction.

In 2010, Xing received a fraudulent text, asking him to secure his funds because his credit card had been stolen.

Panicked, Xing called the number provided and spoke with someone claiming to be a bank employee from another bank, who said that 50,000 yuan had been charged to his credit card.

The person on the other end of the line offered Xing a police number - he also called it.

Whoever picked up identified himself as a police officer, advising that Xing set up a secure account via an ATM to protect his savings. During the process, Xing ended up transferring the money to an unknown account before realizing that he had been cheated.

Angry, he later sued CCB, saying that its ATM failed to work properly and automatically transferred the funds without his authorization.

But, the court ruled that the bank was not responsible for the transfer since the ATM does not move money without an exact transfer amount entered into the machine. It said that Xing should turn to police for help in retrieving his missing money.