A United Bank of Africa (UBA) branch in Oyo State, Southwest Nigeria, has told one of its customers, Abdulrahman Musliudeen, that he is “not qualified for a refund” after N111,000 mysteriously disappeared from his account.
TOP MEDIA reports that Musliudeen, an Ibadan-based 200-level student of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Kaduna State, explained how he made a deposit of N100,000 on November 16.
He said he was managing a Point of Sale (PoS) business to support his schooling and that a customer had made a fund transfer of N20,000 after which he received three alerts for debits adding up to N111,000.
“I credited my account with N100,000 around 10:30 am on November 16. A customer who performed a transaction on my PoS had just made a fund transfer of N12,000 into my account, making N112,000. After some minutes, I started seeing debit alerts to the tune to N111,000,” he told Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ).
“Instantly, not up to three minutes after the incident, I went to my bank branch to lodge a complaint, because the bank was very close to the shop that I was managing for my mother.
“At first, they asked me if I was living with someone. I told them I lived with my mother and grandma, both of whom I helped carry out transactions with their customers.
“They asked me to come back after two weeks. When I got there, the customer care representative told me I was not qualified for the money.”
Furthermore, Musliudeen said he felt “cheated” and “powerless”, and that UBA knew about the fraud because such cases were rampant at this particular branch of Oyo State.
After the bank branch told him that the root cause of the debits was that “the customer’s log-in details, which ought to be confidential, were compromised”, Musliudeen chatted up the UBA customer care representative via the bank’s official Twitter handle, @UBACares, on December 20.
“Hello @musliukenny, kindly be informed that your complaint was thoroughly investigated, and our findings revealed that there was a compromise on your account and the refund was declined,” UBA said.
“Based on these findings, your complaint doesn’t qualify for a refund.”
Asked whether he compromised his account details, Musliudeen told FIJ, “Even my twin brother doesn’t know my transaction details, not to talk of strangers”.
“On that day, my phone was with me throughout, and when I saw the debit alerts, I was like ‘how will someone log in to my mobile banking app without my consent, or see my one-time password to authorise or approve the transaction?’”.
