Published 24th Jan, 2023

By Tola Owoyele

Mariam Mustapha, a Lagos State resident, has narrated how N181,000 mysteriously disappeared from her account after receiving a mail from Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) instructing her to change her internet banking details.

Mustapha told FIJ that she first contacted the bank when she had an erroneous POS debit on December 9, 2022.

“On December 9, I went to a store to make a purchase. Unfortunately, the transaction was declined when I tried paying with my GTBank debit card,” Mustapha said.

The password change email Mustapha received from GTB — The password change email Mustapha received

Notification showing someone else accessed Mustapha’s mobile banking profile

Screenshot showing Mustapha was denied access to her GTB mobile banking app — Screenshot showing Mustapha was denied access to her mobile banking app

“I soon realised that my account got debited for the transaction I never got value for. I immediately reached out to GTBank on Twitter to lodge a complaint but there was no response,” said Mustapha.

Mustapha said she would soon receive an email from the bank advising her to change her internet baking log-in details.

“I immediately followed the instruction on the email I was sent and after changing my details, another instruction came in, acknowledging that I had successfully changed my log-in details,” she said.

“Afterwards, I wanted to send money to my niece but strangely, I discovered that I had been locked out of my account. I quickly went back to the email I had received from the bank to see whether there was something I did wrong, but it turned out I did not do anything wrong.

“It was while I was doing this that I suddenly received a debit alert of N181,000. Someone had just stolen N181,000 from my account. That was, in fact, everything I had in the account. I was shocked.

“I reached out to GTBank customer care line again and was told by the official I spoke with that the N181,000 stolen from my account had been transferred to the WEMA Bank account number 7548704740.

“I mailed them, attaching all the emails I had received from them on the need to change my mobile banking log-in details. I also sent them screenshots of how I was locked out of my mobile banking app to them.

“When I did not get any swift response from the bank after the mails I sent, I went to the bank’s branch at Okota the following Monday and the agent I met also confirmed that the mail containing the mobile banking log-in details was actually sent to me by the bank.

“The most surprising part, however, was that the agent said there was no guaranty that I would get the money back. Their fraud team also acknowledged that a fraud was committed on my account.

“They also said that whoever had access to my mobile banking log-in details changed my access mode from fingerprint to PIN.

“Presently, GTBank keeps me in the dark and has refused to give me further update on how they would help me recover my money. This is strange because I did not in any way compromise my log-in details.”

FIJ was able to establish that [email protected], the email address that was initially used in sending the log-in details to Mustapha, is the email address used by the bank when sending internet banking log-in details to its customers.

FIJ sent an email to GTBank for comments on the matter on Monday, but no response had been received at press time.

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