The Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court ordered Maybank to pay RM166,000 in damages to Chan Yan Li after unauthorised online banking transactions emptied money from her account. [1, 2]
Chan, identified in the Chinese report as 陈燕丽, filed the civil suit in 2022 after the disputed transfers from her Maybank accounts. [3, 1, 2] The money was moved from a housing loan account into a savings account before being sent in stages to third-party bank accounts. [1, 2]
Court records said the transfers ran between 2021-06-26 and 2021-07-02, while Maybank's report and the Chinese report put the outflow at 2021-06-28 to 2021-07-02. [3, 1, 2] Chan said she did not approve the transactions and did not receive TAC messages or SMS or app notifications for the transfers. [3, 1, 2]
Maybank argued that the transactions were authorised, that TAC codes and notifications were sent, and that its Maybank2u system had no problem. [1, 2] But the judge said the pattern was unusual, with some transfers made at odd hours, and that the bank should have been alerted. [3, 1, 2]
The court also noted discrepancies between telecom or Digi records and the bank's TAC or transaction records. [3, 1, 2] In a separate observation, the court said several people linked to mule accounts had pleaded guilty in criminal cases. [3, 1, 2]
Maimoonah Aid, who represented Chan, told the court, “The bank should remain vigilant. The bank has the best technology available today to detect and prevent such unauthorised and fraudulent transactions.” [1] She also said, “The plaintiff is not an active user of the Maybank2U application because she only uses the application to pay her credit card or transfer money to her father-in-law.” [2]
The court ordered Maybank to pay RM15,000 in costs alongside the RM166,000 award. [1, 2]
