At the end of June, the accounts of several Apple users were debited without authorization, typically with smaller amounts of a few hundred or a few thousand forints, but since these were repeated in some cases, several thousand, even tens of thousands of forints were withdrawn in a short period of time. According to the banking consensus, the unauthorized charges were not caused by a cyber attack, but by a technical error in Apple’s systems.
On the first of October, the problem seemed to recur again, many Hungarian users complained that they were seeing transactions that had been illegally deducted. As it turned out, on September 30, Apple’s app store repeatedly blocked (restricted) items related to various subscriptions on the customers’ bank accounts, which they had previously initiated, but their charges were not actually deducted.
Many customers received separate notifications from their banks about previously stuck or repeated bookings. Thus, they could believe that amounts were deducted twice from them in connection with a single transaction, even though no financial performance actually took place.
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According to the Banking Association, the error arose internationally and affected cardholders in about 20 countries. According to the MNB’s announcement on Monday, based on the digital data received from Apple, domestic credit institutions settled and settled customer orders by October 3. Thanks to this, the costs of the transactions initiated by each customer in Hungary were actually deducted only once. Affected customers can check this digitally in their account history (in their mobile or internet bank), or by phone or in person, but if they notice a discrepancy, it is advisable to report it to their bank.
According to the MNB, the Hungarian banks incorporated the experience of the case that happened in the summer and were able to act quickly and take measures so that the actual debit only takes place once on everyone’s account,
thus, the Hungarian customer was not actually harmed in this latest round.
According to the MNB, about 780,000 unauthorized debits worth more than HUF two billion were made during the June incident. The body that supervises financial institutions announced that the entire amount of unauthorized and unapproved card transactions will be refunded to the victims, after which the banks started the refund process, and most of the damage was settled within a week.
We asked the domestic financial supervision whether a comprehensive investigation was launched in connection with the summer’s unauthorized/erroneous bank card debits, and whether responsibility was found in connection with the case. The MNB informed our newspaper that it had launched an extraordinary investigation at the credit institutions concerned. The investigations are currently underway and, in addition to determining responsibility, serve the primary purpose of preventing similar cases from occurring in the future. The central bank conducts extensive consultation with all relevant actors, including credit institutions, card companies and other actors participating in the settlement.
“The majority of credit institutions were well prepared for the situation compared to before and took immediate steps to ensure the safety of customers’ money. Thanks to the strong action of the central bank in the case of the summer, the credit institutions introduced new control functions, thanks to which the current situation affects far fewer customers,” the MNB replied to HWSW.
Source: www.hwsw.hu
