More than 100 BIL customers have reported having money stolen in a scam which has seen customers collectively lose more than €1 milion, as a fraud victims’ group works to claw their money back.
A fake website disguised at the BIL – Banque Internationale à Luxembourg – tricked clients into handing their account details and data to fraudsters who stole thousands from them.
In October, Luxembourg passed a law implementing a European Union directive which means that consumers can bring collective action and collectively claim damages when they have been harmed by unfair commercial practices, such as having money from their bank accounts fraudulently stolen.
“It won’t be easy,” lawyer Marc Theisen, who is representing 42 BIL fraud victims, told the Luxemburger Wort.
Lawyer Marc Theisen is representing 42 BIL fraud victims. © Photo credit: Christian Kemp
Those wanting to take collective action must be represented by state-recognised organisations. The legislation aims to strengthen the rights of consumers and enable them to defend themselves collectively against companies, according to politicians.
But because the law has just been introduced, Thiesen said that the BIL case represents unchartered territory and does not know what the chances of his clients getting their money back will be. He said there are many different aspects to the case and processes that must be observed.
France put the EU directive into law earlier than the Grand Duchy. Theisen explained that in similar cases in France the bank’s obligations are taken into account. In some cases, he said, it is assumed that the bank made the mistake and must prove it was the customer at fault to exonerate itself.
Also read:Customers lose thousands in fake BIL website scam
In those cases “that puts the plaintiffs – the customers – in a better position”, Theisen said.
But the lawyer said that if a bank compensates one customer it would effectively be forced to compensate all the others as well.
“I think that now my job and my task, together with these people, is to see that we take the right path and that we also manage to get justice in this sense,” he said.
Theisen would be happy to find an agreement with the banks “in any form”, however, he believes this is likely to be very difficult.
It is now important to check the exact facts of the case, exactly what happened and what the victim did or didn’t do, Theisen said.
Victims’ group
Alice Pauly, co-founder of the fraud victims’ group, who lost €6,500 on 6 July, is pinning her hopes on the collective class action being able to retrieve her money.
Recently someone came to the fraud victim’s group having lost around €104,000.
“That’s incomprehensible,” Pauly told the Luxemburger Wort.
“The fact that we have brought together so many victims from a wide range of social backgrounds should make the bank realise that it could be at fault,” she added.
She attributed the fact that not all the fraud victims are joining the class action to the financial situation of some of those affected.
According to Pauly, a meeting between the victims’ group and the CSSF, Luxembourg’s financial regulator, on the BIL dossier is scheduled for Thursday.
(This story was originally published by the Luxemburger Wort, translated using AI and edited by Kate Oglesby.)