In January, Ruth Adewole, a master’s student at the University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom, paid her tuition, using her Access Bank account. Like other students, Adewole had not only prayed for a year of academic excellence, but also one devoid of any unwanted distraction.
However, after she was debited with N1,053,348.96, being the equivalent of the £1,800 tuition, the bank sent her a receipt bearing another person’s name.
“The bank sent me an email telling me that my transaction had been approved and completed. However, when I visited the portal with the hope of downloading the receipt and sending to my school, I found out that the name on it was for another person entirely. The payment was also for a totally different school, and with an equally different amount,” Adewale told FIJ.
“I immediately told them to that the telex sent to me was not mine. At the initial stage, they told me they were working on it. But later, they stopped picking my calls. They also stopped responding to me on their Twitter handle and Instagram page.”
The master’s student also said the bank stopped responding to her emails as well.
“The bank’s attitude started giving me the impression that perhaps I had been defrauded. As a result of this, my school has not been able to confirm that I have made my January payment yet. I still received a message from the school yesterday, to that effect,” he said.
“The worst part is that I am still expected to make another payment in February. I have been rendered helpless at the moment because of Access Bank’s negligence. What do they expect me to do with a fake telex copy? Is it that there is an internal fraud going on in the bank?”
FIJ made several calls to Access Bank, but they were not answered. An email sent to the bank had also not been responded to as of press time.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator and a recipient of the D9112 Superstar Icon Award, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
