If you only sent your debit card and received no money

A message saying you need to build up a transaction history to get a loan limit, so please send your debit card and PIN. Quite a few people believe this, send the card by courier, and a few weeks later get a call from the police station. Most of them say, “I didn't receive a single won.” But what matters in these cases is not money received but something you were promised in return.

What the law targets is the means of access, not the bank account

People usually say they ‘lent their bankbook’, but what the Electronic Financial Transactions Act (전자금융거래법) punishes is dealing in means of access (접근매체). These include the tools and information used to move money out of an account, such as debit cards, cash cards, certificates and passwords. Even if you handed over no physical item and only shared information, it may still apply if you allowed someone else to transact through your account.

A violation is punishable by imprisonment of up to five years or a fine of up to 30 million won, and both may be imposed together (Article 49(4) and (8) of the Electronic Financial Transactions Act).

Transfer and lending have different requirements

Transferring an account outright is punishable even without consideration. Lending it for someone to use for a period, on the other hand, is punishable when consideration is given, received or promised, or when you knew it would be used for crime. So in lending cases, what the other party offered to do for you when you sent the card decides the outcome.

In a case where a person who would normally have had difficulty getting a loan sent a debit card in exchange for the chance to build a transaction record and obtain a loan, the Supreme Court held that the chance itself could be consideration for the lending (Supreme Court Decision 2017Do16946, June 27, 2019). This is why saying you received no money does not lead straight to a finding of no charge.

Of course, not every case ends in a conviction. The judgment can differ depending on how convincingly the other party impersonated a financial company, whether you were to get the card back, and whether you reported it immediately once you felt something was wrong.

If voice phishing proceeds came into the account you handed over, you may be investigated not only for violating the Electronic Financial Transactions Act but also for aiding fraud or as an accomplice. If you withdrew that money yourself or sent it to another account as instructed, the charges become much more serious.

What about lending your card to a family member for a short while? If you let them use it briefly with no consideration and did not know it would be used for crime, lending in itself is not punished. But if you handed it over outright, that is a transfer even without consideration, and if the card is used for crime, the account holder will also find it hard to avoid investigation.

Inconveniences that remain even if it ends with a fine

In a case related to voice phishing, you may be designated as a person restricted from electronic financial transactions for three years even if you only receive a fine, and for five years if you receive a prison sentence, including a suspended one. Once internet banking is blocked, even salary transfers and paying utility bills become inconvenient. That is why you need to take this consequence into account when responding at the disposition stage.

If you receive notice that your account has been suspended from payment, first check the deadline for filing an objection, and keep the texts and call records you exchanged with the other party rather than deleting them. An objection to a payment suspension is not accepted if the account holder appears to have known, or through gross negligence failed to know, that the account was being used for fraud, so the records explaining the situation when you sent the card are used here as well.