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Dutch ING Bank will have to pay the Dutch and European Foot Locker branches 300,000 euro in damages. A court decided the fee after Foot Locker was scammed for 1.8 million euro in 2015.
Investigation launched too late
When Foot Locker received a bill from a “new” UPS account at the end of 2015, it assumed the courier service had changed its bank account. However, the account belonged to UPS Consultancy, a company founded at the end of 2014 as a company for “study guidance and education”. Seeing how Foot Locker thought it was the courier service, it made payments to the ING-registered account and the 25-year old owner quickly moved the funds abroad.
According to the judge, ING should have intervened much faster when vast amounts of money were transferred into an account that was only due to receive less than 1,000 euro each month. That was what the owner had told the bank. The account welcomed 1.8 million euro in January and February 2015, something ING should have investigated a lot sooner, especially considering how the money was always instantly transferred to another account.
Foot Locker also deemed too gullible
Even when ING launched an investigation into money laundering, Foot Locker was not informed about the decision. Only a month after suspicions of fraud appeared, the account was blocked, which was much too late according to the judge. However, he also feels ING cannot be blamed for the entire sum either, as Foot Locker could also have checked up on the new account as well and should have had a better failsafe against fraud.
The scammer was sentenced to 322 days in jail and is forced to pay back a part of the money, although it remains unclear where he hid the money.
