UBA Customer Loses N310,000 From Account While Asleep

On May 25, Rofiat Omowumi, an Oyo-based United Bank of Africa (UBA) customer, woke up to an unathorised debit alert of N110,000.

She would later discover that N200,000 had earlier been debited from her account.

Omowumi told FIJ that the unauthorised transactions occurred at about 4:52 am while her phone was switched off.
FIJ learned her phone was not supposed to turn on until 5:00 am because she had enabled a setting that allows it to automatically switch off and on daily by 11:00 pm and 5:00 am, respectively.

Omowumi said she was surprised that such could happen while she was asleep, and considering that she neither compromised her banking details nor revealed them to anyone.

“The N110,053 debit alert was the only alert I saw in the morning, but I found that my account was empty. When I got my account statement, I found that N200,053 was the first unauthorised transaction before the N110,000 but I never got an alert for it.

“It’s so surprising. I never made any transaction, neither did I give anybody my pin or ATM card. I don’t have a roommate. Nobody even knows my pin. I don’t even know how it happened,” she told FIJ.

“When I complained at a branch of the bank in Owode, Oyo, I did not get a positive response from them

I really need that money. I just want the bank to help me refund it and identify what went wrong.”

As of midday on June 9, which marks 15 days the unauthorised deductions occurred, Omowumi confirmed that the money had not been refunded.

On Monday, FIJ emailed Ramon Nasir, the head of media and external relations at UBA, regarding the issue.
He acknowledged the email, saying, “This is being looked into by our team. We will revert with our findings.”

However, FIJ had not heard from him at the time of publication despite sending a follow-up email to him on Friday morning.