Callistus Dede, a job seeker, has accused SportyBet, a popular sports betting company, of compromising his account details to enable a scammer steal N62,000 from him.

Dede told FIJ that he decided to stake some ‘sure odds’ on his SportyBet account for the first time in two years, but little did he know that his decision would cost him all he had.

He said he logged into his SportyBet wallet on Tuesday at 5:50 pm and updated his card details as the card on the account was no longer active. He then made a N500 transfer to his Sporty Bet account.

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“Sporty Bet sent me a one-time pin and I input the details. Shortly, I saw that the N500 was in my betting account. Two minutes later, I thought I was dreaming. I saw debit alerts of N30,000, N30,000, N1,000, N500, and N500,” Dede told FIJ.

Immediately, he called Sporty Bet and they said N500 was sent to his account and scammers must have withdrawn the N62,000. He feels SportyBet did not take responsibility for what happened.

“All the debit alerts showed SportyBet as the recipient and I got a one-time-pin before the first N500 left my UBA account for the betting account,” he said.

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While Dede was thinking of how to get his money back, he tried logging into the account to determine what had happened, but he could not do it. He was asked to wait until Wednesday evening.

“After 24 hours, I retrieved the account and I deciphered what happened. As I updated my card details on the SportyBet website to send money to my account, SportyBet logged me out after getting my card details,” he explained.

“All of the transactions happened after I was logged out of my account. After I was logged out, SportyBet allowed another user to use my card details to wipe my account until I blocked it. Twenty-four hours after the temporary ban on my account, I saw that a transaction had taken place.”

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Dede believed SportyBet compromised his account. According to him, after carefully checking his betting history, he figured out that the N62,000 had truly left his UBA account and entered his SportyBet account before it was transferred elsewhere.

“Running through my betting history, I saw that the person had even gambled on virtual matches with my money while I was logged out. He lost some and won some. He transferred it to a Paycom account, from which he would withdraw the money. But by then, the money had accumulated to N68,500,” he said.

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Dede sent an e-mail to SportyBet on Wednesday evening, but they are yet to respond to it.

When FIJ contacted the company, a call representative said Dede must have clicked a fraudulent link promising a huge sum of money.

“He clicked a link designed to scam him. He must have given someone his details. He should also try to call himself,” she said.