A local bank was yesterday forced to compensate a customer after two thieves stole 10,000 yuan (US$1,200) from him through copying his bank card.

The judge from the Shanghai No 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled, "The Bank of Communications Shanghai Branch did not fulfil its duty of warning its customer of possible danger and protecting the customer's property, therefore it should bear the loss."

The bank is still considering an appeal.

The victim, Gu Jun, went to withdraw money from the bank on East Nanjing Road in May last year and found a white box asking him to swipe his card and enter his password to gain entrance to the ATM vestibule, according to Shi Tunbing, Gu's lawyer.

"Gu followed the instructions but could not get in and left," said Shi.

"When he went to withdraw money again on June 10 of that year, he found 10,068 yuan (US$1,200) missing and called the police."

The following August, the two thieves, Luo Gan and Chen Qiuzhe, were arrested by Shanghai police and were found to be responsible for the theft.

"Luo and Chen installed boxes outside banks which could read and copy the bank card data and then made fake cards, with which they withdrew money from other ATMs," said Shi.

Source: China Daily