Scammed? Your bank has to pay you back first

Banks have to refund scam victims first and argue about blame later. It’s Saturday, 14 November. Nineteen degrees. Air quality: 7 to 30 (Good). Here’s what you need to know.

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BANKS MUST REFUND SCAM VICTIMS FIRST AND ASK QUESTIONS LATER

Anyone in Portugal whose bank account is raided by fraudsters is entitled to have the money put back by the next working day, even if the bank thinks they were careless. That’s the effect of a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union on 15 October, which has been making headlines here this week. The only exception is where the bank suspects the customer of fraud and reports it to the authorities.

The case began with a Polish woman who was selling something online when a fake buyer sent her a link to a copy of her bank’s website. She lost money from her account, and her bank refused to refund her on the grounds that she had been grossly negligent. The Luxembourg court disagreed. It said a bank can’t use alleged negligence as a reason to hold back the refund, because that would force victims to go to court just to get their money back.

The order of events is now clear. The bank refunds first. If it believes the customer was grossly negligent or deliberately ignored security rules, it’s up to the bank to prove it and try to recover the money afterwards, and if the customer refuses to pay, the bank has to take them to court. If the bank does prove gross negligence, the customer can still end up bearing the loss.

The Bank of Portugal says Portuguese law already worked this way, and that it has required banks to refund unauthorised payments immediately, opening proceedings against those that didn’t. The ruling removes that room for interpretation. Caixa Geral de Depósitos, the state-owned bank, says it already follows the rule.

There’s an important catch. The rule covers unauthorised payments, where criminals get into an account and move the money themselves. It doesn’t cover transfers that customers make themselves, even if they were tricked into it. So someone persuaded to send money by a convincing fraudster isn’t protected by this ruling. Anyone who spots a payment they didn’t authorise should contact their bank straight away and ask for the refund.

Bottom line: the burden of proof sits with the bank, not the victim, but the protection only applies to money criminals take, not money people are talked into sending.

⚡ QUICK HITS

A Microsoft outage that ran into a second day hit Portugal’s public services. Outlook, Teams and Copilot went down worldwide from about 6pm on Thursday, Lisbon time, in one of Microsoft’s longest outages, and problems carried on through Friday morning. In Portugal, the government said Microsoft 365 is used across most of public administration, and the health ministry’s IT and shared services body confirmed that organisations under the ministry were affected. Hospital administrators said the disruption was limited to internal communication and management, with patient care running normally. School heads said teachers, parents and pupils lost access to school email and Teams. By Friday afternoon, Microsoft said it had fixed the underlying problem, which it described as technical rather than a cyberattack, and that email was approaching normal levels, though it was still restoring service to some customers.

Housing campaigners march today as the government says it backs most of the Socialists’ housing plans. Casa para Viver, a coalition of housing groups, holds a national march for the right to housing today, joined by the Lisbon housing encampment. Infrastructure and Housing Minister Miguel Pinto Luz said this week that the government had responded positively to more than 90% of the Socialist Party’s housing proposals, and that it was willing to reconsider its proposed rental reform to reach an understanding. He said it now spends more than €300m a year on rent support, against an average of €50m a year under the previous Socialist government, and accused the Socialists of refusing to talk unless the reform is scrapped. The marchers want rent caps that are actually affordable, an end to home-buying by investment funds, and the reform dropped.

AIMA has moved family reunification requests to its online contact form. Since 11 November, the immigration and residency agency’s contact form has two new options, one for relatives still abroad and one for relatives already in Portugal. They replace the old Family Reunification Portal for new applications and are for people with a valid residence permit, or one being renewed, who haven’t applied through another channel. Applications already submitted remain valid and shouldn’t be sent again. For relatives already in Portugal, everyone must have entered the country legally and still be in Portugal on the day the request is made.

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🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

VERMUTERIA NACIONAL (SANTOS)

Vermuteria Nacional is a bar built around vermouth, a fortified wine flavoured with herbs and spices, usually served over ice with a slice of orange. It opened at the end of September with a terrace facing the Jardim de Santos and pours 20 vermouths by the glass, from €3.50 to €9. Five come from Portuguese producers in Madeira, the Douro and the Minho, and the rest are Spanish, Italian and French. The house cocktails are built on Portuguese vermouth, and there’s organic wine and Musa craft beer for anyone not converted.

The food is written on a roll of brown paper hanging from the ceiling, and about half of it is eaten by hand. Think a crispy prawn bite with coriander mayonnaise, mushroom croquettes, an anchovy and pepper toastie, and aubergine stuffed with feta and basil. There’s also a section of tinned fish, all at €10, and four bigger dishes, including bacalhau com broa, salt cod under a cornbread crust, and açorda de camarão, a bread stew with prawns. There’s also a prego, the classic steak sandwich, served in a bolo lêvedo, a slightly sweet muffin from the Azores.

The room is meant to feel like an old neighbourhood social club from the 70s and 80s, furnished with second-hand pieces from cafés and restaurants that have closed, including a marble table with a chessboard set into it. It’s open from 5pm to midnight on Wednesdays and Thursdays, until 2am on Fridays and Saturdays, and from 1pm to 9pm on Sundays. It’s closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Santos still has its share of loud bars nearby, so the square can be noisy late at night.

→ Find them here ←

Insider tip: start with one of the five Portuguese vermouths, from Madeira, the Douro or the Minho, since showing off Portugal’s own vermouth is the whole point of the place.

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