Some customers of the United Bank for Africa on Monday besieged the Ibrahim Taiwo branch in Ilorin to protest alleged illegal deduction by the bank.
The customers lamented their experiences at the hand of the bank, accusing them of exploitation.
Their concerns range from excessive deduction of bank charges, double and illegal deduction.
One of the victims who identified himself as Sideeq Forlarin narrated how he received multiple debit alerts without collecting money from the bank.
He said, “Yesterday, my account was credited with the sum of N20,000. I have the sum of N20,000 already in my account. Surprisingly, my balance rose to N25,000 when the money entered instead of N40,000. I didn’t use my account for any online or offline transactions. I immediately log into my bank mobile app to check the traces of N15,000 deducted, unfortunately, there were no traces of deduction from the transaction history. That is why I am here to complain. I met a lot of people here with the same complaint.”
For Ademola Ibrahim, he had N24,000 in his account and went to a nearby POS in Ilorin over the weekend to withdraw the sum of N19,000. The transaction was successful, and that left him with a balance of N5,000.
On Monday morning, he tried unsuccessfully to recharge his network via USSD. This prompted him to check his mobile banking app where he met -N9,800. He had to head straight for the bank to log complaint.
He said, “I was able to access the bank around 1:30 pm after waiting several hours. I was told the money will be reversed to his account after 24 hours.”
Julius Amaniga, for his part, said he made a transaction through POS in Ilorin and collected N12,000 on Sunday evening, but he didn’t see any alert of the transaction.
He continued, “Early this morning around 6 am, I saw the debit alert of N10,200 and not more than 3 minutes after, I received another debit alert of N3,000. I quickly transferred the remaining money to another bank account and come here to complain this morning. I am yet to enter the bank.”
Earlier this year, the CBN said any bank that deducts monies illegally from a customer’s account for products and services would be forced to refund the money to the customer with interest.
The directive was sequel to complaints by bank customers within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) over excess charges by banks through Automated Teller Machine (ATM) withdrawals and other electronic mediums.
