FIJ
Simbi Oge (not real name), an Enugu-based teacher, got the shock of her life on February 6 when she discovered that her United Bank for Africa (UBA) account had been emptied of her N180,139 savings.
FIJ learnt that the incident happened 20 days after a UBA staff helped her register an account on the mobile banking app, and eight months later, she has not recovered the money.
Oge told FIJ that she had picked up her phone around 10:00 pm on that Tuesday only to find that the money she had been saving for over a year had been transferred to an unknown person.
When the bank later told her that the transaction was carried out with her own phone, she could not believe her ears. She said she lived alone, no one had her details with the bank and she did not initiate the transaction.
Thus began the futile eight-month journey of attempts to make her bank help her recover the money she kept in its care.
FIJ understands that the missing N180,139 was transferred in five different transactions between 8:29 pm and 8:40 pm on February 6. The debit alerts FIJ saw showed that the money was transferred in this manner: N5 + N50,026 + N100,053 + 20,026 + N10,026.
By the time Oge noticed the unauthorised transactions, she only had N24,305 left in her account. She quickly placed a call to UBA via its helpline and her account was blocked.
“According to them, the transaction was carried out with my phone which I can’t believe because I stay alone and no one was with my phone. I was not even using it when these debit alerts came in because I was busy doing something else only to pick up my phone around some minutes to 10:00 pm,” Oge told FIJ.
FRAUDSTER OR BANK INSIDER? SUSPICIONS MOUNT
Oge has reasons to suspect that the unauthorised transactions may have been an inside job. She believes that UBA knows what happened to her money.
Here’s why.
On January 17, three weeks before the incident, she visited the UBA branch in Nsukka opposite Peace Mass Transit to get her statement of account.
She told FIJ that she needed to tender the account statement to her boss as proof that she had not received some money he insisted he had paid. A bank official simply identified as Caleb attended to her on that January day.
“He checked the two accounts I have with them, one is my NYSC account while the second is my normal account. He told me the money didn’t enter any of the accounts. This made me request a statement of account,” Oge narrated.
“He told me that I had to link my account to my email before I could get the statement because they don’t print statements again. I allowed him to do so. I also asked him to tell me why I stopped getting interest from the bank, and he checked my account and told me that it was because I started making more than two transactions in a month.
“He also asked me to get a mobile app, so that I could have access to my account to check my statement anytime I wanted to. He helped me set up the app himself on my phone. I asked if I could use the mobile app for both accounts and he said no because I didn’t have an ATM card for the second one.
“He sent me to another person who sent the statement to me. When she sent the statement, the email requested a code before I could open it, and the woman said she had not seen such before. She sent me back to Mr Caleb, who helped me again. He put the code himself with my phone, which, according to him, he got from my phone. And after that, the mail was able to open.”
On February 7, the day after her N181,139 disappeared mysteriously, Oge rushed to the UBA branch where Caleb had helped facilitate her access to the mobile banking app.
She went to report the transactions, and the bank told her that it must have been a fraudster.
“They said I should go home and that they had written to Abuja to know where my money entered. they said I should be back in 15 days time, but I wasn’t comfortable with that,” Oge explained.
“The next day, I went to see the manager, who in turn told me that everyone was a suspect after asking me if I gave someone my phone, if I shared my one-time password (OTP) with someone, if I lost my ATM card and so on, to which all the answers were no.”
The manager then advised her to exercise patience and wait for 15 days to hear from Abuja, where the branch had written. Oge said she was not relaxed all through that period, as she kept visiting the bank to remind them of her money.
“They kept on telling me that they have not responded yet and that I should just wait for the 15 days. I went back after 15 days as I was told, hoping that my money would be reversed, only for them to give me a sheet of paper where they said my money went to,” Oge told FIJ.
“According to the paper, the person’s name is Ahmad Mahumma with this PalmPay account: 9068051954. I approached the branch manager with the information, and he said I should get a lawyer, police or the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the matter.”
Upon hearing this from the branch manager, Oge was disappointed.
“The money I left under their care went missing, and all they could tell me was that I should follow the case up and fight for my money. He said he would provide all the information they needed, and in the end, whoever did it would pay for it,” she said.
“I left the office disappointed. I visited the manager’s office not less than three times and always came out frustrated.
“I am very much convinced that the bank knows what happened to my money because I didn’t lose my phone. I don’t even have vital information about my bank saved on my phone. I didn’t give out any number or code or OTP to anyone. I didn’t give out my account number or email address to anyone except the workers in the bank.
“No one handled my phone that very day, and even the OTP sent to my phone was still unopened yet the transaction was still carried out. But the money in my second account wasn’t tampered with as he [Mr Caleb] did not link it up to my email nor even open a mobile app for it.”
Oge also sent an email to the bank in August to demand explanation for the unathorised debit as well as a refund.
By the time UBA would respond, the bank told her: Your account was used to enrol on UBA mobile banking platform via your sensitive account details. shows that your details were compromised in addition to the verification code delivered to the registered mobile line.
The bank further claimed that the successful enrolment on the banking platform and the unauthorised transactions happened because Oge’s sensitive account details and verification code sent to her registered line were compromised.
While describing the toll the missing funds had had on her, Oge said: “This has actually frustrated my life and made me live in pain and fear as I don’t know who is who again. I am just a graduate who has yet to get a job, and the little I had from where I teach was taken from me without any form of explanation.
“I even reported my case to a human rights organisation, the Nsukka branch, but they did not do anything about it just because I did not have money to pay them N5,000 every court day I attended. They kept on telling me to come today and come tomorrow without doing anything about it. At a point, I got tired and stopped going.
“Since this incident happened, I have been a shadow of myself and [there is] no one to run to to help me out. Since that day I blocked the account, I have not been using it.”
FIJ contacted UBA via email on October 15. The back wrote on Wednesday:
This is to acknowledge the receipt of your mail. Kindly be informed that we do not divulge our customer’s account information to a third party. Please be advised to liaise with the account holder to contact us to enable us assist further. Our sincere apologies for any inconvenience experienced in this regard.
THIS STORY FIRST APPEARED IN FIJ
