Toyin Akinlabi, an Ogun State resident, has shared how N72,900 left her Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) account without her authorisation in October. She told FIJ the bank has been unable to help her recover it.

Akinlabi told FIJ that her brother-in-law transferred the sum of N150,000 to her on October 31 for a project, but she was not notified via a credit alert.

She said she did not even know the money had been sent until November 1, when her brother-in-law called to ask if she had received the money sent from his company’s account.

“I told him I did not receive any alert but would log in to my GTB mobile app to confirm the transaction,” she disclosed.

Akinlabi’s account statement showing the credited N150,000 and the debited N72,900

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The mobile app did not open when she tried to log in, so she decided to use the Internet Banking option, the bank’s online platform, instead.

“When I logged in and checked my account balance, I saw the money but it was under the book balance,” she told FIJ.

Book balance is the total sum of funds in one’s account. It includes all transactions that are pending or confirmed and deposited funds that are not yet available for withdrawal. On the other hand, the available balance reflects the actual funds that can be accessed or withdrawn.

When Akinlabi saw that the deposited N150,000 was under her book balance instead of the available balance, she assumed temporary network issues were at play.

“I thought it was a network issue and that it would be resolved only for me to log in the following day, November 2, and I saw that N72,900 had been deducted from my account,” she said.

Akinlabi said she did not authorise the transaction.

November 2 was a Saturday, so she could not go to a physical branch of the bank. She also could not go out on Monday, November 4, because she was ill, but she was able to visit the GTBank branch at Redemption City, Mowe, on November 5.

“I was there on Tuesday morning to lodge a complaint, and the staff member who attended to me said my account had been compromised,” Akinlabi recalled.

“And I asked, ‘By who?’ But I got no answer. I filled out a form and was told to block my ATM card.”

After reporting the fraudulent transaction that took place on her account to the bank that day, Akinlabi went home and hoped for some good news.

She got an email from GTBank on November 6, stating that the disputed sum was withdrawn from her account via local WEB transaction GooglePlayNG.

The bank wrote: “We contacted the merchant GogglePlayNG and requested that the disputed transaction be terminated. However, we were informed by the merchant that the transaction was successful, and service had already been rendered.

“Furthermore, our review showed that the disputed transaction was consummated with your card credentials… In view of the above, we have reason to believe that your debit card details might have been inadvertently compromised.”

The email further stated that GTBank would not be able to accede to her request for a refund based on the outcome of its review.

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The bank’s email response.

Contd. The bank’s email response.

Akinlabi, who insisted that she did not consent to the transaction, said she had been having sleepless nights over the missing money. “In this hard economy… A whole N72,900 [gone] just like that!”

FIJ messaged GTbank via X and email on Wednesday but only got a relevant response from the former on Thursday.

While responding to the inquiry, the bank wrote: “Kindly inform the account holder to contact us via this platform or visit any of our branches to enable us review the transaction as we do not attend to third party’s complaint via this platform.”
The post GTBank Says It Can’t Refund Customer Who Lost N72,900 to Unauthorised Debit appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.