Published 26th Jun, 2023

By Ridhwan Abdullahi

Taofeek Aiyelese and Lafeef Aiyelese, two siblings who are residents of Lagos State, have accused Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) of aiding fraudulent activities on their accounts.

Speaking for himself and Lateef, Taofeek told FIJ how the sum of N218,000 was fraudulently removed from their accounts on June 13 and 14 without their consent.

Taofeek said he was taking his wife to the airport when he felt the need to withdraw some money. He made use of a GTB ATM gallery in the Omole area of Lagos State.

He said on returning to his car, he received a series of onetime passwords (OTPs).

“I started to wonder what the OTPs were for since I didn’t make any online transaction that required OTPs,” he said.

But before he could make sense of what was happening, he had received debits to the tune of N150,000 in three different transactions. He rushed into the bank to make a complaint.

**Debit Alerts to the tune of N118,000 Taofeek Received**

Although the officials he met told him the money had not been deducted, Taofeek was baffled by further remarks by the officials.

Taofeek said the bank made cases for fraudsters, alleging that “the smart boys” had phished him. He said the bank told him ‘boys’ were lurking behind him while he made the ATM withdrawal.

“They said the money had not been removed but it had been deducted from the ledger balance of the account. And then, they started making cases for the boys, saying they were smart, and probably some guys saw my code when I was making use of the ATM, which was not true,” Taofeek said.

Taofeek requested for the CCTV footage of the ATM transaction he made, and it turned out he was never phished, and no one lurked behind him at the time of the transaction.

“I requested the footage, and none of their claims was true. So they now said they would escalate the process to ascertain what was happening,” he said.

He said he expected GTB to stall the fraud but was surprised when, in the middle of night, he got alerts of fraudulent deductions.

“It was around 3 am that I was alerted that fraud was going on in my account. Immediately, debit alerts started pouring in, saying airtime recharges were done on the account at the rate of N50,000 in three instances,” Taofeek recounted.

In his own account, Lateef said he had not to come to terms with Taofeeq’s experience when he also suffered the same fate.

According to Lateef, a Lagos Airport official, he was in his home when he received debit alerts from GTB. In less than 10 minutes, N118,000 had left his account.

N118,000 debit on Lateef's account — **N118,000** debit on Lateef’s account

“I didn’t transact with my card. My phone was with me, and I didn’t make any online transactions. I was in my house. All I was just receiving was debit alerts. It was surprising,” Lateef said.

Taofeek and Lateef lodged separate complaints at their respective GTB branches but nothing was done.

“I was told to fill a form, which I did. My brother said he was also asked to do the same at a nearby branch of GTB. But ever since, none of us has got any positive response about it from the bank,” Taofeek said.

FIJ messaged Cornelius Onuoha, one of GTB’s spokespersons, but he was yet to make comments as of press time.

“Imagine GTB telling me that those guys were very smart, and that internet fraud was a global problem not limited to their bank. They are incompetent,” Taofeek said.

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