Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 22 March 2023
91. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Finance the number of persons to whom online platforms have paid compensation following said persons being victims of authorised push payment fraud as a result of fraudulent advertisements on their platforms; and the total value of compensation paid, in each of the years 2018 to 2022, inclusive. [14335/23]
View answerIntermediary Service Providers (ISPs), including online platforms, are regulated by the Digital Services Act (DSA), which entered into force on 16 November 2022. Under the DSA, users have the right to complain to the platform, seek out-of-court settlements, complain to their national authority in their own language, or seek compensation for breaches of the rules.
However, there is no one categorisation of push payment fraud and it is not recorded as authorised push payment fraud on the Gardai’s PULSE system. Push payment fraud is usually a fraud that involves a level of social engineering where victims are manipulated into making real-time payments to fraudsters. These type of frauds are called cyber-enabled frauds.
As stated in my response to a previous question on this topic, the Banking and Payments Federation has supplied data on the number of transactions affected by authorised payment fraud and the total value of those transactions from 2019 to 2021, noting that this information is not available for the years prior to 2019.
In 2019, there were 1,646 transactions with a gross loss of €10.3 million. In 2020, there was a significant rise associated with the Covid-19 pandemic with 2,947 transactions and a gross loss of €15.6 million. The trend continued in 2021, which saw 3,967 transactions and a gross loss of €16.8 million.
The Provisional Crime Statistics for 2022 released by An Garda Síochána notes that Fraud Offences fell overall from 2021 levels, driven in reductions post-pandemic in online fraud.
While the revised payment services directive (PSD2) set out the industry requirements concerning liabilities for unauthorised payment transactions and the applicable security requirements to help protect consumers against fraud, there is no requirement for payment services providers to compensate customers where authorised push payment fraud occurs.
It should also be noted that measures contained in the revised payment services directive (PSD2) apply only to businesses authorised as payment services providers.
