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Access Bank

11.10.2024 Featured A Customer Sent N360,000 From One Access Bank to Another in Error. The Bank Won’t Return It Even After a Court Order

Published 11th Oct, 2024

By Tola Owoyele

Abiodun Badmus, a Lagos State resident, has narrated how Access Bank has been foot-dragging in helping him recover a N360,000 sum he erroneously made to a wrong account number.

Badmus told FIJ that the incident happened while he was in Yola, Adamawa State, on July 26.

“On July 26, I needed to pay someone N360,000 for a service he once rendered to me,” Badmus told FIJ on Wednesday.

“When the beneficiary sent his account number, I was delighted to see that it was an Access Bank account. This was because I operate an Access Bank account as well.

Receipt of the Erroneous Transfer Badmus Made
Receipt of the Erroneous Transfer Badmus Made

“While transferring the sum, however, I erroneously sent it to a wrong Access Bank account number.”

READ ALSO: $13.89 Vanishes From Lagos Entrepreneur’s Access Bank Account

Badmus told FIJ that when he realised he had made an error, he quickly visited one of the bank’s branches in Yola to explain what had happened.

“When I explained everything to one of the branch’s officials, he advised me to go and obtain a court order,” Badmus said.

“He said it was until I obtained and submitted the court order that the bank would help me initiate a fund recovery process.

“I subsequently submitted the court order at Access Bank’s Yola branch on August 8.

“Since submitting the court order, I am yet to receive any positive response from Access Bank. Despite all the efforts I made, nothing has been done by the bank to help me recover the money.

“If the transfer had been made to an account number belonging to another bank, I would understand that recovering such monies would be difficult. This is an erroneous transfer between two Access Bank accounts and I have submitted a court order like they requested.

“It has been more than two months since the incident happened and all Access Bank keeps telling me is that they are still working on the matter. An erroneous intrabank transfer?”

Badmus further told FIJ that he also liaised with the bank’s customer care desk for a resolution on the matter.

“Nothing concrete and fruitful has also come out of that,” Badmus said.

READ ALSO: After FIJ’s Story, Access Bank Wipes Off Customer’s Loan Originally Obtained by a Thief

ACCESS BANK’S RESPONSE

When FIJ contacted Access Bank’s customer care desk for a reaction on the matter on Wednesday, one of the bank’s officials, who did not state his or her name, issued the following response:

“Please be informed that the investigation into your complaint is still ongoing, and it has not been overlooked.

“Our legal team is actively investigating the matter, and once we receive feedback and recommendations from them it would be communicated to our customer.

“We assure you it won’t take too long.”

In a second interview with Badmus on Friday, he told FIJ that he had been getting a similar response from Access Bank that its team was working on recovering the N360,000 for two months.

51 replies on “A Customer Sent N360,000 From One Access Bank to Another in Error. The Bank Won’t Return It Even After a Court Order”

I had similar experience with GT bank till date nothing has been done, I wrongly transferred N400,000 to wrong account which I immediately called Gtbank and a form was sent to my mail to fill which I filled immediately and I got a confirmation that the money had been blocked, it’s over a year now no refund has been made and it’s GT bank to GT back account.

I had similar experience with GT bank till date nothing has been done, I wrongly transferred N400,000 to wrong account which I immediately called Gtbank and a form was sent to my mail to fill which I filled immediately and I got a confirmation that the money had been blocked, it’s over a year now no refund has been made and it’s same GT bank to GT back account.

It actually takes about 3 – 6 months for the court order to go through. I honestly don’t know why but it’s happened to me before. Dont worry, you will get your money back.

This issue is a serious one and cbn need to look into it…just to confirm from d receiver and call for questions but Nigeria banks are too lazy and don’t care Abt their customers at all only after there own. Bank did same mistake and recover d money without our consent .

The banks in are terrible. They’ve put in place systems that see them perpetually rip off customers despite doing daily trades with depositors’ funds.
They charge as much as N1,000 to issue ATM debit cards and still take over N100 monthly as card maintenance fees and you wonder what they’re maintaining.

On the issue in discourse, firstly I’d still blame the person who made the wrong transfer because if the account number he inputted was wrong, it definitely would have shown him a name different from the intended recipient.

But for the bank to be asking for a court order is most reprehensible, almost giving a sense that the bank wants to use any and every means to frustrate a customer.

Whereupon the bank was shown proof of the actual destination account, the bank was supposed to simply reverse the deposit back to the source account and message and/email/call the owner of the wrongly-credited account and communicate the action.

That’s what is done in North America and all those usless charges they collect with no quality customer service do not exist.

Unfortunately, the CBN which should regulate these extortionist policies of the banks is also using banks to do a revenue drive for the FG with their inexplicable stamp duty charges after a customer has been debited fund transfer charges.

If you don’t know how a system works, you keep sh*t not trying to dictate how the system should work.
Banking is one of the most regulated industries in Nigeria if not the most regulated. There are laws governing this industry. Whatever a bank does is in line with legal requirements and not to punish customers. Not doing these things attract sanctions and negative reputation.
Are you aware that a bank can not just debit your account or deny you access to your funds? That is why they request for court orders in these cases to either freeze the funds or initiate process for recovery.
On the issue of Debit Card Issuance fee of N1,000, are you aware that banks incur a loss of N500 for any card issued? CBN mandated it to be N1,000 and they have no option.
For card maintenance, it is not monthly rather once every quarter. That is CBN instruction and I doubt any bank goes against it.
You don’t just know what you are saying.

Same thing happened to after all the requirements and court order access bank to access bank account i didnt get the refund of 114000 back yet

Nigeria banks are worst, I stop using them since all these online banking don’t have much issues like them. The likes of gtbank, Uba, Access. All of them are useless, when you send money expecially weekends na story story.. Online banks won’t do this, intra banks transfer you still facing this problem of refund, haaa! what if its inter banks, you just have to forget that huge money….God help this nation, even CBN are not helping matters atall.

I think the reason why the bank will request a court order is for the fact that some of this transactions are business gone bad and the bank staff will be at the receiving end. My cousin slept at Lagos police HQ for 2 days and ended up paying the amount as he reversed a transaction the customer ran to him for help about. He tried calling the beneficiary who said he did not k ow what he was talking about. So at the end the beneficiary came and said they had a deal with the customer who at this point was no longer reachable. They could have even connived. So back to case in question, if a court order has been gotten then bank staff is to get in touch with reciver of the funds and request to reverse. If receipienybdoea nit challenge court order then the bank is o lodged to reverse funds in 48 hours after reaching recipient

If they report the culprit banks to the necessary complaint department at CBN, their monies will be refunded by the said banks promptly. Why waste time go to court?

I have experienced the same scenario this year and it was resolved by filling for CONTEMPT OF COURT after the Court Order wasn’t obeyed.

The money was transferred the following working day after the contempt of court was served on the headquarters

I believe if he can do this or a lawyer to sue the Bank for contempt of court

It happened to me last year. It appears Access Bank is covering for those benefit from the erroneous cash transfer. This is preposterous!

There is a way this type of complaints work. Definitely Access Bank must have initiated an investigation. What if the beneficiary had withdrawn fully on the erroneous transfer? What do you expect Access Bank to do on this instance? Access Bank would put a Hold on subsequent inflow into the Account. What if the Customer decides not to transact with Access Bank any further? The case will be as good as lost. This is my personal opinion as an ex Banker

Is very possible, the account is not having BVN attached and also finding it difficult to reach out to the customer.

However, this is intrabank Transfer which is not supposed take more than a week.

There is lack of empathy here.

If this person is ready to recover his money quickly he should apply this quickly. He should walk in to his bank again and have a brain talk with the bank official in charge of the costumer care to tell you what really happened and from experience, what likely to have happened was that the owner of the account you transfered money to might have owe the bank and immediately the money got to that account the bank has deducted its own money and if this happened they can not refund uncompleted money to you because that will against the court order you summited and the bank can be penalized for doing that if you took up the matter to the court and the Bank will not like that to happen by going against the court other. Now, what the Bank expected you to do is two things,

(1) The Bank is expected you to pay the balance if you can afford it to make your money completed in that account that means you have paid for the debtor ,then the bank will be able to send your money to you completely.
(2) You go back to the court then the court will issue you fresh order to Invite the bank official represented by the Bank legal team and the court will issue warrants of arrest order for Bank to get the debtor arrested and bring him or her to court then court will now order him to pay his or her debt to the bank or if he or she failed to do so then the court can send him or her to jail, and if this happened you may l repeat you may still not be able to get your money in full but the court will order the bank to return the remaining in that account to you but don’t forget this process may still take like 4 to 5 months.

This is only thing you can do because they wouldn’t tell you this and till next, next and next year this is what they may likely telling you if you can’t do this bargaining am taking about. My experience that fruitful please. Thanks

Post on X (Twitter), tag cbn, tag access bank, tag EFCC, NDIC, and other related finance authority. As well as email. You’ll come back to thank me.

I had similar experience with access bank since February nothing has be done to recover 350k access requested for account to be refunded but nothing has been done

I had a similar experience , but in my case I was so lucky the fund was reversed in less than 2 weeks. The transfer was Access to GTB

Please do well to confirm from the bank of the funds is still in the wrong beneficiary’s account. Because if the person has used the funds as it is in most cases the bank will not refund you any money but will only put a hold on the account waiting for any funds that will drop in the account.

The CBN and the Banks in Nigeria is really a fraud , because it’s only in Nigeria that you see the way the Banks charges it’s customer’s very for everything that doesn’t make sense at all .. The Trillions they get from stamp duty alone is one major fraud between them..And as dumb as the citizens and victims are . They won’t challenge this exploitation that is going on with impunity in the country.. Imagine the charges they take from the so called sms charges and funny enough you will see you were charged for full sms twice in a month after doing their monthly statements

The same thing happened to me I mistakenly make a wrong transfer of 800,000 from access bank to UBA, with a court order for more than two years but nothing has been done for it.

Anything about Naija is frustrating. Just imagine an intra bank transaction that is taking donkey months to resolve in a world where technology on issue resolution is just a click. How do us this thing? 😭

All the banks do this. I made an erroneous transfer since 2022. I got a court order for GTB to reverse the funds till date they haven’t. The account I sent the money to don’t even have a BVN. Most of banks are into fraudulent activities, CNB is doing noting about it.

I am issues with my Access bank though not similar to this but I need to narate my experience which hasn’t been resolved it now. I received a debit alert of 89,500 in Sept. 2024, though I don’t have any money in that account. So my account bal. was -89,500 Naira. I called Access customer service but said I did a transaction by March 2024 but they don’t debit me even though I got service for it. As soon as my client send money to my Access, they debit the 89500 immediately. I have Access dusty service three times and they said during consolidation, they realise the issue. I requested my account statement and there is no such transaction as claimed by Access in March or any other months. I was my money to be refunded because I never make such transaction and there is no evidence anything.

Hi everyone my name is Julius…
Firstly when sending the money, don’t you confirm the name of the beneficiary before entering the PIN???
and secondly the person you erroneous transfered the money might have withdrew the money from the account and the bank can’t refund the money until the money is completed into that person’s account so far it’s not an unauthorized transaction… you can actually revisit the branch for better clarification…

I had a similar transaction between my bank fidelity bank and access bank but with my court order it was reversed with in two months

Access bank is d worse than yahoo very fraudulent institute dt hw I lose my money daily, cbn need to disconnect dis bank as one of the commercial bank In dis country if corruption is b check

One thing I know about this wrong transfer is that until the customer gives order for the bank to move the money, it won’t be possible or the customers could have withdrawn the money immediately it entered the account.
The customer should keep pestering,it would be resolved, I had similar case for like 3 years now that was what I was told . Till now nothing has been done from fcmb.

A customer A sent #1m to customer B’s account in same bank as payment for goods. Upon receiving payment, customer B releases goods worth #1m to customer A.

After taking delivery of goods, customer A rushes to the bank and claims he made an erroneous transmission of #1m to customer B and requested the bank to reverse the money.

Above fraudulent scenarios are common place in Nigeria. It will be wrong for any bank to carry out such reversals without proper investigation.

Even if it turns out that the recipient customer received the money in error but has already withdrawn the money, the bank is still not liable.

Not all the erroneous transfer a Bank can return even with court order. What if the Beneficiary of erroneous transfer have withdrawn the money before the complaint or court order? Or what if there is another order restraining Bank to do that?
This is just one side of the story…

Very funny, I have similar experience with Access Bank, it took the grace of the owner of the account with Access whom we got to know personal to revert the money.

Even me since July 19th my own bank is first bank 50k I wrongly send it to another account till now Notting. I have spend more than 10k for calling them and transportation going to the bank I have filled two times forms with my passport till now Notting happens is only God can talk for the poor in this country banks are doing anything the like and nobody check mate them
I pray God will come to our Aid in this Nation

I also have a similar experience with Moniepoint when someone transferred my Money from my Moniepoint account to Zenith bank ABUJA. I obtained a court order and up till today Neither Zenith bank nor Moniepoint have returned my money

The court order is definitely necessary. What if it’s a business gone bad between sender and receiver? The bank can certainly be sued if fund is reversed without following due process.

The court order will also have to be reconfirmed from the courts (fake documents abound everywhere) and this may take a while as our legal system is sometimes unfortunately slow.

The customer’s fund will be reversed once the due process is completed.

The court order is definitely necessary. What if it’s a business gone bad between sender and receiver? The bank can certainly be sued if fund is reversed without following due process.

The court order will also have to be reconfirmed from the courts (fake documents abound everywhere) and this may take a while as our legal system is sometimes unfortunately slow.

I am certain customer’s fund will be reversed once the due process is completed.

It’s time six months or more for the court order to be effective if the wrong beneficiary never make do with the withdrawal. I will recommend a bill should be passed for anyone who failed to report or withdraw money transfer erroneously to his or her account There should stuff penalties for the offender. Thanks

I have a similar situation with UBA bank which I didn’t know who withdraw money or transfer 387,000 from my account since 24/6/2024, I brought the court order to UBA BANK till now Nothing has been done

Me too I mistakenly made a wrong transfer from my Access Bank Account and i contacted Access Bank and informed them. They ask me to get a court order to enable them get my money. I got the Court order and gave them and that was the end. Whenever i ask, they will tell me that the beneficial bank have been notified and is 4 months plus is still “the beneficial bank have been notified” till date. Very disappointed with the way Access bank handles the recovery of my money.

I had the same issue September this month, mine was Access bank to palmpay customer agent, and palmpay demanded court order, and refused to call their agent, even refused to give me their agent phone number. I didn’t get my money till now, and I know the money is gone. U know those agents has different account number that is not like the accounts they use phone number., the way things are been done in Nigerian bank sector is not right at all. I believe all those accounts are been linked with bvn and NIN, without any court order. But once u have little issue in Nigerian banks where they should help u with the informations they have, they will be demanding court order, etc. Just to suffer citizens.

Warm greetings.

The same happened to me @ GTB. They are so very worse! On the 18th of December last year, i needed to transfer some money to someone. My screen was giving me issues, I typed in the account no, just for me to send it started blanking out again and I mistakenly click on the first account that came up (Ferdinand Farm 0604829008) and it went through. When my screen claimed down, I was in shock to see that i have transfered 100,000 to that account.

Immediately I went to GTB @ Ikosi road Oregun where I opened the account, logged my complaints and I was informed that my account officer is at Mafoluku Oshodi, that shocked me (Stephanie 0811 070 2139). I called her and she gave me hope to look into it. She asked me to send the complaint to her mail box which I did immediately. After 10 days and no response I went to Ikosi road again and I was told to call her that she’s the only person that can assist.

When I called her she said she spoke to the account officer of that account and the person said the person that owns the account said they can transfer the money to me since the account has been dormant, asides this, they have blocked the money and it can’t be removed from the account even if the account was activated. After a week and no reversal, I called my account offer said she waiting for the account owner to send a mail for the reversal which hasn’t been done, and that going for a court order would help expedite action.

I went to Ikeja to inquire about the court order but was informed that the amount was too small and that to get a court order cost over 200,000. I called to inform her of this but she shouted at me and ever since blocked me from calling her.

I tried to go to the bank again to logged my complaints but it feel on deaf ears. Ever since the time, I left the matter a lone.

Guarantee Trust Bank should be called Unguaratee Bank as they can’t be trusted for anything. They are Shylocks. When I saw this story I decided to share mine. I really hope it gets to the right quarters

It’s a pity what’s going on in this country. So many things are just wrong.

Imagine me complaining about my 30k I sent erroneously and here is someone still struggling to recover his 360k. It’s a pity. This thing is supposed to be plain and easy, but we have a cancerous government.

Can the bank tell us why it is difficult to correct such errors. Why can’t the customer be allowed to stop such transactions within an hour or so of such error. I was sent a request in an emergency medical situation. The account number was wrong by the last digit. Almost immediately after the transfer, the intended recipient corrected the number. There was nothing I could do. This was from firstbank to opay. I called the wrong recipient and he refused to return the money. I messaged him and he refused to reply. The banks have all information about the recipient and should be able to ban them from operating or opening an account rather than encouraging them. The process of recovery is ow and cumbersome. Errors like this happened in anogue life of the bank so errors can and do happen.

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Published 11th Oct, 2024

By Tola Owoyele

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