Bank transfer fraud: when it is a crime and when it is merely a breach

The bank transfer is the payment method par excellence for purchases between individuals, payments to suppliers, property deposits or advances for services. Its familiarity generates a trust that fraudsters systematically exploit: in Spain, transfer scams are one of the most frequent forms of economic fraud. But not every transfer that ends badly constitutes a criminal offence.

The offence of fraud requires several simultaneous elements: a sufficient deception, an error in the victim caused by that deception, an act of disposition of assets, which is the transfer, and an economic loss. The element that distinguishes criminal fraud from mere civil breach is the initial deception: the perpetrator must have acted with the intention of deceiving from the very first moment. If someone sold you a car in good faith and then could not deliver it due to supervening difficulties, there is a contractual breach resolved through the civil courts; if they accepted the payment knowing they would never deliver anything, there is criminal fraud. The difference lies in the intention at the moment of receiving the money, and that intention must be evidenced through external elements.

The most frequent forms are several. The phantom seller on second-hand platforms posts an advertisement, asks for payment by transfer to a private account and disappears. The property deposit or advance scam offers a property at an attractive price and asks for a deposit on a property that does not belong to them or does not exist. The fraud in contracting professional services charges an advance and does not provide the service. CEO fraud impersonates an executive or supplier so that the finance department transfers to an account controlled by the fraudsters. And the investment fraud convinces the victim to transfer to a supposed platform from which they will never be able to withdraw anything.

Evidencing the intention to deceive is the main difficulty. Courts assess indications such as the non-existence of the promised good or service, the falsity of the perpetrator’s data, the pattern of repeated conduct with other victims, the objective impossibility of performance from the outset and the disappearance of the perpetrator immediately after receiving the money.

If you have been a victim, act quickly. Call your bank immediately to request the blocking or reversal; SEPA transfers have a complaint procedure that can be activated if action is taken quickly. File a police complaint with all the documentation: the proof, the conversations, the advertisements and the perpetrator’s details. If the transfer was to a foreign account, recovery is more complex and may require international judicial cooperation.

The chances of recovering the money depend on several factors: if the account is in Spain and the money has not been withdrawn, a judicial freeze may allow full recovery; if it has already been withdrawn, it depends on the fraudster being identified, convicted and having assets. In some cases the bank may have its own liability if it did not implement the required security measures. And the civil route against the identified fraudster is always available.

It is worth remembering that the offence of fraud is subject to a statute of limitations: in its basic form, five years from the commission; in its aggravated form, ten. The period is interrupted by the filing of the complaint, so acting in time is essential.