Tokula Joy Ojone, a resident of Lagos State, has detailed how she lost N151,000 after First Bank of Nigeria lifted a lien placed on her account to prevent an injurious criminal activity.
Ojone explained to FIJ that she received some questionable messages from her bank in April containing five onetime passwords, each for a pending N1,000 debit transaction.
Not long after, she got debit messages showing that N161,000 had been removed from her account.
She told FIJ she quickly walked into one of the bank’s branches in the Idimu area of Lagos State, where she was told that it was a MasterCard fraud attempt.
To stop the fraudsters, the bank put a lien on her account.
The bank informed her that the lien would be active on her account for 30 days, and she wouldn’t have access to the money within the period.
“On April 4, 2023, I received five SMS messages, each with an OTP for a N1,000 MasterCard pending debit. I was immediately alarmed, and then I checked my account balance, only to discover that N161,000 had left my account,” Ojone told FIJ.
“Within 30 minutes, I entered a First Bank branch in Idimu to lodge a complaint to that effect. I was told that there was a MasterCard fraud attempt on my account. They then helped me place a lien on the said amount with a term that it would only expire after 30 days.”
Ojone also said she went to the bank’s branch in Ikotun the same day to strengthen his complaint.
She also sent a message to the bank via its Twitter handle to press home her complaint.
She said, “I was hopeful that my complaint was properly channeled, and I completely believed in the bank’s internal mechanism that was activated for me.
“On May 8, I realised that the lien had been lifted and the amount reflected in my account balance. That gave me a respite that would not last.
“To my utmost dismay, N151,000 disappeared from my account about an hour later. It was removed in three installments: N100,000, N50,000 and N1,000. It went into a Sportybet wallet.
“I went back to the bank and one official revealed to me that the lien was deactivated to enable the money go into the Sportybet wallet of someone I did not have any connection with. I quickly withdrew the balance of N9,700, when the Ikotun branch manager told me that the fraudster was still attempting to steal it.
“The manager said to me that there was nothing he could do to help me get the money back because it had left my account successfully.”
First Bank failed to respond to FIJ’s emailed request sent on May 26 for its comment on this story.
L-R: Account statement showing the pending debits on April 4 and a page showing the withdrawal on May 8
Credit: Foundation for Investigative Journslism
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