Bank Tells Customer: “Not Our Fault You Got Scammed for $750K”

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In a stunning twist of fate, a court ruled that Santander Bank isn’t responsible for your crypto disaster. Who would’ve thought?

Court Shuts Down $750K Crypto Lawsuit Against Santander Over Fraud Losses

In a move that may surprise absolutely no one, the Massachusetts Appeals Court delivered a verdict that could make even the most experienced lawyers scratch their heads. On April 18, the court firmly rejected Lourenco Garcia’s attempt to recover over $750,000 lost in a cryptocurrency scam. All of that, mind you, after Santander allegedly let him walk straight into a fraudulent transaction, holding the door open with a smile and a “go ahead.”

In a decision as bleak as it sounds, the court upheld a previous ruling from November 2023, which essentially boiled down to: “Sorry, not our problem.” Garcia had tried to hold Santander accountable, claiming the bank should have intervened in the series of transactions that led to his money being whisked away into the depths of the crypto underworld. But the court didn’t buy it.

Between December 13, 2021, and January 4, 2022, Garcia made two online card purchases through Crypto.com and initiated seven wire transfers at Santander branches. A cool $751,500 was sent off to an account at Metropolitan Commercial Bank of New York, where it was promptly converted into cryptocurrency and forwarded to Coinegg – a platform that was, as it turned out, not at all as legitimate as a hot dog stand in Times Square.

Garcia, understandably, was upset when the scam was revealed. His attempt to hold Santander liable rested on the fact that their website had a promise (sort of) to intervene if something fishy was going on. The statement, buried somewhere between vague corporate jargon and promises of “secure transactions,” read:

If we see any transactions that follow patterns fraudsters typically use, we will text you or email you to ask whether or not you authorized the transactions.

Now, you’d think this would mean Santander was on the hook, right? Not according to the Appeals Court, which ruled that the language was more of a “maybe” than a “definitely.” The judges pointed out that Santander didn’t *have* to intervene — it *could* but wasn’t obligated. In other words, it was like your friend saying, “I’ll totally call you if I think your new haircut looks bad” and then never doing so because, well, it wasn’t a promise, just a very loose suggestion.

As for Garcia’s other claims, the court was equally unenthusiastic. It noted that Garcia authorized every single one of the transactions himself, and he couldn’t identify any breach of contract or legal duty on the bank’s part. No fraud, no negligence, no nothing. Just an unfortunate series of events where your $750K vanishes into the abyss of crypto scam-land, and Santander’s only responsibility is to give you a polite, “Sorry about that.”

So, in case you were wondering: no, Santander doesn’t owe you for your bad decisions. And, no, it won’t help you out if you get caught in a scam. Because apparently, their only role in this tragic story was to take the wire transfer fee.

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2025-04-20 09:29