Your Taiwan Account Was Used in a Scam: Can the Victim Make You Pay?

NT$149,967 landed in a Malaysian student's post office account on the evening of March 29, 2022, in three transfers. Withdrawals followed within minutes (judgment). Earlier, answering an online ad for packing work at home, the student had mailed the account's ATM card from a convenience store. The "company" said it needed the card and PIN to buy materials under the student's real name, and that the account could be empty.

Prosecutors in Taichung declined to charge the student. The civil claim came anyway, attached to a criminal appeal in which the student was not a defendant: the person who had sent the money asked several people, the student among them, to pay NT$500,000 jointly (Tainan Branch judgment).

If you handed over your account but deceived no one, and prosecutors did not charge you, can the victim still make you pay? Four rulings from 2024 and 2025 give different answers. What separated them was each account holder's own situation.

What a non-prosecution decision leaves open

Under the first sentence of Article 184, paragraph 1 of Taiwan's Civil Code, a person who intentionally or negligently and unlawfully infringes another's rights is liable for the damage. Account holders deceived no one directly, so victims add Article 185: paragraph 1 makes people who jointly and unlawfully infringe another's rights jointly and severally liable, and paragraph 2 deems instigators and helpers (幫助人) to be joint actors. Under Article 273, paragraph 1, joint liability lets the victim demand all or part of the payment from any one, several or all of those liable, at the same time or one after another.

Being a "helper" still requires fault of your own. In a May 20, 2025 judgment, the New Taipei District Court's appeal panel said a helper is jointly liable if the helper acted with intent or negligence and the act is adequately causally linked to the loss. In tort, negligence means falling short of the care of a prudent manager (善良管理人), and this "abstract light negligence" is enough. The prosecutor there had found no intent. The chat records behind that decision, the court said, proved only the absence of intent, not of negligence.

Proof is the victim's job. In the student's case, the Tainan Branch of the Taiwan High Court restated that whoever claims damages in tort must prove the elements of the tort (judgment).

That case also shows how a claim can reach you. Under Article 487, paragraph 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a person harmed by a crime may bring a civil action within the criminal proceedings against the defendant and anyone liable under the Civil Code. The student had not been found a joint tortfeasor in those proceedings, so the claim against the student did not meet that paragraph's requirements. After the case moved to the civil division, the victim cured the defect by paying the court fee (judgment).

Criminal exposure is a separate question, touched on in parcel-pickup job scams; for frozen accounts, see Taiwan warning accounts.

Two found not liable, one ordered to pay

On May 29, 2024, the Tainan Branch dismissed the claim against the student (case 112 Jin-Jian-Yi No. 108). The student's chat messages with the "company" showed that the scammers had used the student too, so there was no intent. On negligence the court was specific. After a little over two years in Taiwan, spent studying on campus rather than in the workforce, the student had limited social experience and judgment, and as a foreigner knew little of Taiwan's law and social realities, job-hunting traps or scam tricks. The court would not impose the care an ordinary adult in Taiwan owes in keeping an ATM card, and found no negligence. The student told the court of going to the police after realizing it was a scam.

In New Taipei, a district court appeal panel went the other way (case 113 Jian-Shang No. 499). The holder there had known a woman from a dating app for about half a year, never in person. She said she was a soldier posted to Ukraine and needed an account for her pay. In September 2020 the holder mailed her the card for a newly opened account and sent the PIN and online-banking login through the app. Prosecutors had declined to charge the holder over other victims' transfers, and the first-instance court ruled for the holder.

The appeal panel reversed. The holder had a master's degree, had worked in logistics and had started a business. Government and media had widely warned against handing bank details to others without reasonable checks, or without a proper reason. And a European soldier's pay arriving in a New Taiwan dollar savings account made little sense. The holder verified neither her identity nor her reason, and never took the card back or reported the account lost. The court ordered payment of NT$100,000 plus interest.

On July 2, 2025, a district court appeal panel in Taipei sided with the account user (case 114 Jian-Shang No. 137). This person managed an account opened in their father's name for a home loan, and gave its online-banking login to someone met online who spoke of a sick son and a struggling business in Thailand that needed help with wages. The user had voiced doubts and, after police questioning, repeatedly asked where the money came from. The victim had to prove that the user knew or could have known that providing the account could cause others property loss, the court said. Here the account had been lent free, out of trust, by someone deceived too. Neither intent nor negligence was proven.

Prosecutors had declined to charge all three. The courts weighed each holder's particulars: age, education and work, how long and in what setting they had lived in Taiwan, how believable the request was, what they checked, and how they reacted when something looked wrong. Only the Tainan court counted being a foreigner, and it did so alongside the student's campus life. Chat logs cut both ways. In Taipei they showed someone who doubted and questioned; in New Taipei, one who never checked.

Liable for money that went into someone else's account?

Tainan decided the claim against the remaining defendants on June 26, 2024. Another account holder there, an adult, had a final conviction for aiding money laundering by providing that account, a prior fraud conviction, and a shifting story about how the cards went missing. The court found indirect intent and, under Article 185, paragraph 2, treated this holder as a joint actor liable jointly with the cash mule, but only for the NT$28,985 paid into the holder's own account. Nothing showed that this holder knew of or helped with the NT$149,967 in the student's account. The mule was liable for the whole loss; the emotional-distress claim was refused.

When the victim asks for the money back as unjust enrichment

Victims sometimes add an unjust-enrichment claim, as in Taipei. Under Article 182, paragraph 1, a recipient who did not know there was no legal ground, and whose benefit no longer exists, need not return it or pay its value. Under paragraph 2, a recipient who knew at receipt, or learned later, must repay what was obtained at receipt or what still remained on learning, with interest, and compensate any damage. Taipei applied paragraph 1: the user had not known of the fraud, and the money left the account as soon as it arrived, so nothing remained when the user found out.

A complaint that arrives years later

The New Taipei transfer was made in October 2020; the suit came in 2024. Under Article 197, paragraph 1, the claim lapses if not exercised within two years from when the victim knows of the damage and of the person liable, and also lapses ten years after the wrongful act. The court read "knows" as actual knowledge. The victim was still chasing the promised parcel in 2021 and 2022, and the transfer slip showed only an account name in English letters. It was hard to say the victim knew who was liable before the police identified the holder, and the holder offered nothing to the contrary. The time-bar defence failed.

What a Taiwan lawyer can do in this situation

A Taiwan lawyer can read the complaint, or the attached civil claim once it reaches the civil division, and obtain the police and prosecution papers, including any non-prosecution decision. With your job ad, chat records, shipping receipt and bank notices, the lawyer can show what you knew and did, and argue fault, the amount actually paid into your account and the time limit in Article 197. A lawyer can also negotiate a settlement with the victim's side, represent you in the civil court or the attached proceedings, and work with your criminal defence counsel if a criminal case is still open. No one can promise how a court will weigh your facts.

To consult an English-speaking lawyer in Taipei, write to Hovering International Law Firm at wei@hoveringlaw.com.tw; the office is at 7F-2, No. 35, Sec. 1, Chengde Rd., Datong Dist., Taipei City 103, Taiwan. It helps to attach the complaint, the date you handed over the card or login, and any non-prosecution decision.

Official sources

• Civil Code (Taiwan), Art. 182, Art. 184, Art. 185, Art. 197, Art. 273 (Laws and Regulations Database, current text)
• Code of Criminal Procedure (Taiwan), Art. 487 (Laws and Regulations Database, current text)
• Taiwan High Court, Tainan Branch, civil judgments in case 112 Jin-Jian-Yi No. 108 (112年度金簡易字第108號), May 29, 2024 and June 26, 2024
• Taiwan New Taipei District Court, civil judgment in case 113 Jian-Shang No. 499 (113年度簡上字第499號), May 20, 2025
• Taiwan Taipei District Court, civil judgment in case 114 Jian-Shang No. 137 (114年度簡上字第137號), July 2, 2025

Checked: October 19, 2026