On August 19, Chukwudi Nmagu, an Aba-based businessman, woke up to the fact that N800,000 had mysteriously disappeared from his account with the United Bank for Africa (UBA).

Just the previous day, one of his clients had transferred a substantial sum of N980,000 for a business deal. By the end of the day, he had only withdrawn a total of N120,000 for expenses, leaving him baffled as to what had transpired.

What made matters worse, according to Nmagu, was that he had no involvement in sports betting. Yet, to his shock, he discovered that despite his phone switched off, someone from another location managed to withdraw his money into an MSport betting wallet without having access to a one-time-password.

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Recounting his ordeal, Nmagu stated he observed that N800,000 had been withdrawn from his account in five separate debit transactions on August 19: N200,000, N250,000, N200,000, N250,000 and N100,000, all occurring after 2:34 am.

“Subsequently, the perpetrator made a deposit of one naira, presumably to check my account balance. Upon realising that I had N73,000 left, they abandoned the account. They used an MSport account to execute these transactions,” Nmagu disclosed to FIJ.

Immediately after discovering the fraudulent activity, Nmagu contacted UBA’s customer care and urgently requested that they block his account to prevent further unauthorised access.

Frustrated by the situation, Nmagu also sent an email to UBA which they acknowledged.

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“Because this incident took place over the weekend, and with most people at home, I waited until August 22 before visiting the UBA branch at Aba’s main location on Factory Road. They provided me with an incident report form to complete and requested some time to investigate,” he explained.

“On that very day, they sent an email assuring me that they were looking into the matter. Subsequently, UBA requested that I wait until September 6. In a separate email, they extended the timeline to September 12. However, as of today, I have not received a resolution or my missing funds,” Nmagu added.

When FIJ reached out to UBA for comments on the issue, a bank representative asked for the location where the complaint was lodged but did not respond to other inquiries. As of the time of this report, the bank had not provided any further response to the reporter’s follow-up email.