There is a commotion in the Ring Road branch of Guaranty Trust Bank Plc as customers stormed the bank to complain about the hacking of their accounts and fraudulent withdrawal of funds from their accounts.
It was gathered that no less than 15 customers have lodged complaints on fraudulent deduction of money from this account at the time of filing this report.
“They were the first set of customers that visited us today. Some of them have been addressed, they’ve filled forms to enable us to investigate and do the needful,” a bank official revealed to REPORTERS AT LARGE.
One of the staff of the branch, while trying to pacify some of the victims disclosed that a sum of N49,000 was also deducted from her account.
One of the victims, who wore a white garment and described herself as a prophet, but it does not want her name in print, disclosed that a sum of N2,000 was unduly deducted from her account.
According to her, “That is the money I want to give to my child to go to school his morning. I am a prophet. I know the stress I go through before I could get the money. Give me my money now.”
Another victim, who alleged a reduction of an N1million from his account overnight said: “I’ve experienced it in GTB before. Then, it was 100k that was deducted. Since then, I stopped using the account to receive any amount that is more than N100,000.
‘But yesterday, someone had to send a sum of N1m into my account. As came to the GTB Ring Road branch this morning and saw people complaining, I just checked my account, only for me not to see the N1m transferred into my account yesterday has been deducted.
The victim, who claimed anonymity, alleged that the Manager of the branch cannot feign ignorance about what is happening.
“Imagine, they first claimed they were trying to so upgrade, later they same they were investigating it, now they claimed it was blablabla… I’ll can anybody who my nonsense,” the victim lamented.
“I was right in my house this morning, with my ATM in my purse, only for me to get debit alerts of N2000 and N4,000 respectively, around 5.20am, claiming I withdrew the money from GTB POS,” another victim, a woman in her early 40s revealed.
It was gathered that the fraudulent deduction of money is not limited to Naira-dominated accounts, but it also affects the domiciliary account, as another victim, claimed that a sum of $200 was deducted from his account early this morning.
“I didn’t use the Domiciliary Card since over two months I came to collect it. I kept it inside the ceiling. Now, the bank management claimed that I spent the money on an online transaction,” the victim disclosed.
“Just give me a withdrawal slip. I want to withdraw the remaining money. May God judge. I left everything for God,” the man in his early 60s told one of the cashiers while lamenting.
A customer of the bank, who simply rendered to himself as Adebanji, noted that the issue of fraudulent deduction of customers’ money is not peculiar to the Ring Road branch of GTB and disclosed that some of his kinsmen have had their share of the bitter experience.
He also disclosed that there are cases of such fraudulent deductions in other banks in the country while emphasizing the need for bank management to buckle up their shoes in tackling fraudulent activities in their business.
Adebanji opined that most of the frauds are perpetrated by some of the banks and or in conniving with some of the bankers.
The manager of the branch refused a clarification with REPORTERS AT LARGE.
As of the time of filing this report, the GTB, Ring Road branch management, has locked their doors for customers to enter the bank for any transaction.
Recall that REPORTERS AT LARGE recently reported that some customers have continued to accuse Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) of aiding an unauthorized withdrawal of funds from their accounts by an online sports betting platform, SportyBet Nigeria.
REPORTERS AT LARGE gathered that victims of the unauthorized fund withdrawals were not subscribers of the SportyBet Nigeria services, while some of them after lodging complaints to GTBank got some or full refund of the unauthorized withdrawal funds.
