Mr. Walter Ikani, a health worker based in Calabar, Cross River State, has declared that his N1.6million deposited with Guaranty Trust Bank has mysteriously vanished from his Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) account.
Ikani, said in spite of his repeated visits to the Bank and made to write formal complaint, the Bank seems to be unperturbed over the development.
He explained that the unfortunate incident which he described as fraud took place exactly six days after he requested for a new ATM card.
According to Ikani; “I visited the bank several times and wrote to them after the incident, but nothing positive came forth despite my spirited efforts. The fraud took place six days after I requested for a new ATM card.
“On August 7, 2022, I received a call from an unknown number and the speaker sounded like an automated voice, reading out a set of numbers.
“Confused at the voice message, I quickly hung up the call, only to see a series of alerts, about eleven of them, to the tune of N1,650,000, debited from my GT Bank account,” he said.
Ikani further said that he was surprised to see that SportyBet was the recipient of the unauthorised transaction on his account, adding that immediately after the series of the debit alerts from his account, he quickly contacted his account officer, who promised to restrict his account and escalate the issue.
Continuing, Ikani said; “I searched the internet for the Sportybet customer care contact and registered my complaint. The first representative I spoke with asked me to report the case to GTBank so they could liaise with them to resolve the dispute because they could not oblige me as an individual.
“The second customer care representative was a bit more considerate. She told me that the funds had been further transferred to a Palmpay account, which she read out to me,” he said.
He also said that the following morning, after the incident happened, he personally approached one of the branches of GTBank situated along Calabar road and made a formal written complaint addressed to the branch manager.
Ikani said the documented complaint was in addition to an email he had earlier sent, which the bank acknowledged, adding however that some days later, after he visited the bank, the Bank replied him via an email stating that the transaction was consummated using his primary card details thus, the bank cannot refund his money.
He said that upon further inquiry, GTBank directed him to fill out a card dispute form to enable the Bank’s fraud team to review the transactions.
In his words; “GTBank would later mail the outcome of the card dispute investigation to me saying; “the funds were further transferred to three accounts, each belonging to either Palmpay and two others.
“They noticed I was the beneficiary of the accounts. Meanwhile, a simple check on the accounts displays the actual name of the beneficiaries,” he said
Ikani said that among the accounts listed in their report, only one account belonged to him which was his Zenith Bank account, adding that only N1 was credited to the account while the chunk of the fund was credited to a Palmpay account, and about N100,000 to the Polaris account.
He further said; “I noticed two things in their report that remained unclear. What is the name of the beneficiary account where the funds were initially transferred to?” he asked.
“Secondly, how is it that the Palmpay account number initially mentioned by the Sportybet customer service representative was not reflected in their report because the transfer details on their report did not capture the entire transfer of N1,650,000,” he enthused.
