Zenith Bank Staff ‘Lie’ After ATM Swallowed Customer’s Card, N227,000

A resident of Lagos Amina Mudasir on April 8, 2024, Amina went to the Zenith Bank at Magodo branch and wanted to withdraw from the bank’s Automated Teller Machine (ATM), with her husband’s Access Bank ATM card.

As her card got stuck in the machine, Zenith staff failed to retrieve it for her and what followed was a series of debit alerts amounting to N227,000!

Till now, both Zenith and Access banks have placed her money in limbo.

According to Semiu Munir, Mudasir’s brother-in-law who reached out to FIJ on Wednesday, the Zenith Bank security guard told Mudashir that the card could not be fetched because the card was not a Zenith Bank card.

Munir described how bank staff once lied that Mudasir was never at the branch while they directed him to Access Bank and the police.

“My brother called me and I went to the bank. I asked to see the manager but the lady that attended to me took me to one room where they had a screen.

“I saw my brother’s wife’s pictures withdrawing on their ATM, but I insisted that I wanted to see the video coverage,” Munir narrated.

He further said; “They said if that is the case, then I should tell Access to write to them officially.”

Since both banks maintained close proximity, Munir told FIJ, he dropped a hard copy letter at the Access Bank branch in Magodo directing them to contact Zenith Bank as they had been told to do.

According to Munir; “Two weeks later, they declined our request. We still went back to Access Bank three weeks later, but this time, they said Zenith told them that my brother’s wife didn’t come to their bank to withdraw even after I had seen the picture on their camera the first time,” he told FIJ.

“One of the staff at Access Bank told me that we should go and get a police report at Alausa before we can have access to the video, but I’ve had to travel since then.”

Semiu also told FIJ that he once tweeted at the two banks on X, but while it looked like they were going to rectify the issue, “they just stopped responding all of a sudden”.

When FIJ contacted both banks on Wednesday, Zenith responded that “a complaint has been logged and feedback would be communicated to the customer” while Access said on Thursday that they would “get back after 24 hours”.

(Foundation For Investigative Journalism)