Is This The New Way Bankers Defraud Their Customers Or Was This An Honest Mistake

The story am about to narrate happened to someone very closed to me, so its a first-hand narrative. The person sat down with me and showed proof of the unbelievable experience. Am writing this so that Nigerians can be more careful when they visit their banks.

He went to First Bank on the 23th of this month to pay some money into a friend’s account who was preparing for his wedding and needed some assistance. You know how planning for a wedding is, every little help is appreciated.

He paid in N 5000 into the friend's account as the screen shot from the teller proves and the bank stamp to authenticate the actual amount he paid in.

When he left the bank he did not bother to check the receipt given to me by the Bank Cashier, First Bank gives a narrow slip receipt.

But he was shocked when his friend sent him a BB chat message saying the money he paid to his account was actually N 500 and not N 5000. He said he thought his friend was just joking so, but when he insisted, he decided to go and check the receipt the Bank Cashier gave to him and to his utmost surprise, he discovered it was actually N 500 the cashier recorded and not the N 5000 he gave to him. You can imagine his shock.

He had to quickly send his friend an apology chat and told him he would go to bank first thing on Monday 26^th May to report the incident to the bank.

Really, I don’t know if this was an honest mistake or whether it was deliberate by the Bank Cashier, because it has never happened to him nor me before.

What I am however familiar with is that, some people have said they receive a bank alert from their bank indicating that a particular amount has been credited to their account from a customer they are doing business with, and its usually a customer they are doing business with for the very first time, only to discover that an hour or so after concluding the business transaction and the customer having taking possession of the goods, they now receive another alert from the same bank but this time saying, the initial credited amount has been reversed. You can imagine their shock, because the customer has already left with the goods.

They are now left with no money in the bank and no goods.

The bank alert they got came from the same source as the other authentic alert their banks have been sending them, its under the same thread so its not a new number or different source.

It is almost impossible to use another number to send a message as a corresponding message, (corresponding meaning, another message following the same message line or source they've been receiving their bank’s messages via their email or text messaging).

The simplest way for this to have happen is for someone within the banking system to manipulate the system and forge this. So it means a banker most likely liaised with the fraudster to defraud its own customer. 

How long can this continue and yet CBN keeps advising us to use Internet Banking and ATM, Cashless Policy they call it.  Better security measure has to be put in place and staffs have to be monitored because a lot of people are losing their money because Bankers and sadly Banks are finding new ways to defraud them of it. THIS IS WRONG.

By the way my friend after visiting the bank was told the credit would be reversed but only by the cashier who posted it, sadly he did not come that day. By Tuesday he got a BB chat from his friend saying his account has been fully credited. Thank you First Bank, but please ensure it doesn't happen again.

Lesson: Before you leave the banking hall, ensure you read the slip and confirm the amount you paid it. If my friend had carelessly thrown away both his teller and the slip, there would have been no way the bank would have believed his story because the only proof he had was his teller and the bank slip, nothing was written down. Zenith Bank I know ask their customers to write down deposited amount.