School Teacher Loses Money In ATM Fraud

…Alleges shoddy handling by bank

BY SIJIBOMI OYEDEPO

Funmilayo Aruleba got up early on a Sat­urday morning to clean her house, pre­pare breakfast and visit her elder sister who lives at Ifo in Ogun State. Never in her wildest imagination did she think she would experience the trouble she faced.

When she left her house about 8am that fateful day with the hope to use her Access Bank ATM card on a GTB ATM machine which she normally uses at Joju area of Sango Ota, Ogun State, she did not envisage that the exercise would keep her on her toes for days.

As she inserted her card into the machine, she realised that there were three people be­hind her.

She operated the machine but the message ‘unable to dispense cash’ popped up. The machine asked if she would want to make another transaction, to which she pressed the button ‘No’.

 Suddenly, Fumnilayo realized that the last man on the queue had come closely behind her.

He told her he used the machine some min­utes back and had the same problem. He encouraged her to use it again. So she slotted in the card and started trying again, the machine did not re­lease the card. The man who encouraged her to try again then told her to go and lodge a complaint to the bank, say­ing that one of the bank staff got his card out for him. Af­ter waiting for 15 minutes at the machine and two of the three persons who wanted to use the machine had gone, she saw a female banker step out from the bank and she ap­proached her and explained the problem but the banker retorted sharply, madam, this is weekend oh! You have to come back on Monday before your card can be re­trieved because we have to take your picture.”

While contemplating how to sur­vive till Monday when she would get her card back, Funmi got an alert. Twenty thousand naira had been deducted from her account. Six more alerts of twenty thousand naira each and one ten thousand nai­ra deductions were made, totalling N150,000. While the alerts were being sent, Funmi got confused, then scared. She ran to the securi­ty officer at the bank who shunned her. Quickly, she met the bank staff whom she spoke to earlier. The lady banker told her it might be the transactions she had done before but Funmi insisted that she didn’t try to withdraw money seven times from the card. The banker then ran into the ATM booth to check if the card was there but couldn’t find it.

According to Funmilayo, the woman banker was very bitter and kept saying she wished she had checked and given her the card. Funmi immediately started looking for the “helper” who encouraged her to report the case to the banker. Un­fortunately, he was nowhere to be found. At that point, Funmi was told that the particular machine she used had been faulty since January. The security guard was ordered to go to Zenith Bank two blocks away from GTB to see if anyone was there. The guard took a while before he came back and said he couldn’t find any­one using the ATM. Sadly, Funmi went back home.

On Monday, Mrs. Aruleba went to GTB to lodge a complaint but was told to go to her bank because she was a “Third Par­ty”. When she got to Access Bank, Funmi wrote a complaint letter stat­ing all that happened.

Access Bank then took up the case by writing to GTB requesting for footage of that period so that they could trace those who were around the ATM. However, Guaranty Trust Bank could not provide the video or pictures. Access Bank then wrote to Zenith Bank where the card was used. The bank provided a picture but it was in black and white which made it difficult for anyone to see the face of the perpetrator.

When Access Bank gave Funmi­layo the picture, they stated that it was all they could do but if Funmi didn’t mind, she should visit Zenith Bank to get a colour and clearer picture and GTB to get more assis­tance. She went back to Zenith but was told they couldn’t render any more assistance.

When Fumilayo realized that GTB didn’t report the case to the po­lice, neither could they produce her card, she reported to an elder broth­er who told her to take up the case. At this point, Funmilayo had lost weight and fallen sick. Her husband and children were very gloomy as they could not eat or cope.

The case was then reported to the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights. The office looked at her frame of mind and health and decided to take up the case. A letter was written to the GTBank Head office explaining all that happened and demanded that Funmi’s money be refunded to her.

Comrade Kushimo Olumuy­iwa, Secretary of the Lagos State branch of CDHR said: “When she complained to us, we wrote GTB and Zenith Bank requesting for the original footage of the people who used the ATM at the time the theft occurred and that GTB should take full responsibility and refund Fun­milayo’s money since they could not provide the card. “

When Damilola Falade and Tolulope Fadipe of the Legal de­partment of GTB Head office wrote weeks later, it was to dispute the notion that the machine used at that time was faulty and Funmilayo was careless to have given out her pin. The letter read: “Please be informed that the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) in question is not mechanically faulty as alleged in your letter. However, in recent times, informa­tion at our disposal confirms that fraudsters employ various tactics in executing ATM related frauds including deceiving unsuspecting and probably ignorant customers. It is, therefore, possible that Mrs Funmilayo (complainant) fell vic­tim for one of such tricks which enabled the fraudster to eject the complainant’s ATM card. It is also imperative to note that the bank is unable to produce footages for the said transaction as some of the foot­ages were lost during subsequent servicing of the said ATM.”

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Upset with the response and at­titude of the GTBank, the CDHR wanted to know what CBN rules guiding ATM are and what hap­pened to their CCTV? He also wanted to find out how the card which was retracted by the machine got to the hand of the fraudster. The CDHR has promised to report the case to a higher authority so that the issue could be handled properly.

Funmilayo, a mother of four children and a teacher in a pri­vate school cum trader pleaded that something be done especially for her so she could pay the debt brought on her family by a thief. She said: “ It was not my money. It was for someone’s business and I have not finished paying the mon­ey. Part of it is my business capi­tal. I sell OK grade 1 clothes but since then till now, the business has stopped. Only God saved me. My blood pressure shot up and I fell sick. That was not my first time of using ATM. I have been using the ATM for five years now. I don’t know why that happened.”

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