From: john boyle 
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Re: Chip and pin fraud.
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 23:02:50 +0100

In message , Tim 
 writes
>Either breach of contract,

Thats not illegal.

>theft

How have the bank been guilty of theft?
>, or fraud?

Ditto.
>
>If banks could do this legally, we'd see them all simply transfering every
>customer's balance to the bank manager's accounts and saying "ah, that's
>life - now go away!"

Youve lost any sense of logic there. If it was the bank alone who 
effected the transfer then the bank would be guilty of theft. If an 
outsider conned the bank into doing it then the 'victim' would be the 
account holder form whom the dosh was transferred. The 'thieft' would 
have stolen form the account holders bank account. If the bank were 
negligent then they could be guilty of  conversion, but that isnt a 
crime, it would be settled in tort.
>
>> "Tim" writes
>> > And the account holder who they happened to pick
>> >on, needs to just shrug their shoulders and accept it?   :-(
>>
>"john boyle" wrote
>> In court, the 'victim' would be the account holder.
>
>Yes, the victim of the bank reducing their account's balance without
>authority.

No, possibly the victim of the banks negligence resulting in a civil 
suit for conversion, but the criminal offence is that the account holder 
was the victim.


-- 
John Boyle