Toyin Akinlabi, an Ogun State resident, has shared how N72,900 left her Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) account without her authorisation in October. She told FIJ the bank has been unable to help her recover it.
Akinlabi told FIJ that her brother-in-law transferred the sum of N150,000 to her on October 31 for a project, but she was not notified via a credit alert.
She said she did not even know the money had been sent until November 1, when her brother-in-law called to ask if she had received the money sent from his company’s account.
“I told him I did not receive any alert but would log in to my GTB mobile app to confirm the transaction,” she disclosed.

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The mobile app did not open when she tried to log in, so she decided to use the Internet Banking option, the bank’s online platform, instead.
“When I logged in and checked my account balance, I saw the money but it was under the book balance,” she told FIJ.
Book balance is the total sum of funds in one’s account. It includes all transactions that are pending or confirmed and deposited funds that are not yet available for withdrawal. On the other hand, the available balance reflects the actual funds that can be accessed or withdrawn.
When Akinlabi saw that the deposited N150,000 was under her book balance instead of the available balance, she assumed temporary network issues were at play.
“I thought it was a network issue and that it would be resolved only for me to log in the following day, November 2, and I saw that N72,900 had been deducted from my account,” she said.
Akinlabi said she did not authorise the transaction.
November 2 was a Saturday, so she could not go to a physical branch of the bank. She also could not go out on Monday, November 4, because she was ill, but she was able to visit the GTBank branch at Redemption City, Mowe, on November 5.
“I was there on Tuesday morning to lodge a complaint, and the staff member who attended to me said my account had been compromised,” Akinlabi recalled.
“And I asked, ‘By who?’ But I got no answer. I filled out a form and was told to block my ATM card.”
After reporting the fraudulent transaction that took place on her account to the bank that day, Akinlabi went home and hoped for some good news.
She got an email from GTBank on November 6, stating that the disputed sum was withdrawn from her account via local WEB transaction GooglePlayNG.
The bank wrote: “We contacted the merchant GogglePlayNG and requested that the disputed transaction be terminated. However, we were informed by the merchant that the transaction was successful, and service had already been rendered.
“Furthermore, our review showed that the disputed transaction was consummated with your card credentials… In view of the above, we have reason to believe that your debit card details might have been inadvertently compromised.”
The email further stated that GTBank would not be able to accede to her request for a refund based on the outcome of its review.
READ ALSO: GTBank Can’t Account for N1.3m Missing From Customer’s Account


Akinlabi, who insisted that she did not consent to the transaction, said she had been having sleepless nights over the missing money. “In this hard economy… A whole N72,900 [gone] just like that!”
FIJ messaged GTbank via X and email on Wednesday but only got a relevant response from the former on Thursday.
While responding to the inquiry, the bank wrote: “Kindly inform the account holder to contact us via this platform or visit any of our branches to enable us review the transaction as we do not attend to third party’s complaint via this platform.”
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23 replies on “GTBank Says It Can’t Refund Customer Who Lost N72,900 to Unauthorised Debit”
The same thing they did to me. The sum of 34000 was deducted from my account when I went to the bank they told me the same thing. I think there is someone who is a staff of the bank that is doing this withdraw. GTB return my money or your business will close because I did not do that withdraw. I hv decided not to use GTB again because I believe there are criminals in that Bank.
GT Bank have debit almost about 100k without refund
I have similar case with GTB and I am still on it from October till now. The debited me twice for a single transaction, I have been asking for my refund they have not responded. I think the bank have an internal issue.
Dear FIJ,
I like what you have been doing to assist individuals resolve financial issues. However, I will also like you to inquire further from the complainants to tell the truth , if they have compromised their atm card details and have also divulged their otp received via sms. It will educate other people on the need to keep these things secret to avoid unnecessary pains
Exactly the same thing they did to me. My 4500 was deducted claiming its GoogleplayNG which I don’t understand. Someone sent me 20000 and immediately they deducted 4500 from it. I called them they were telling me to block my ATM card. And they refused to give me back my money .What kind of useless bank is that? I immediately transfer all the remaining money in the account to another bank.
Such have happened to me to I later discovered that someone is using it to buy something online which he payed me back is no from back
That’s online purchase from Google
This thing happened to me recently what i did was I message google playstore that I was not the one who used the money to purchase anything and that someone hacked my email to get to use my card number that was in Google playstore to purchase and google playstore refunded the money because you bank will not be able to refund it because it was someone that used your card that you put on google playstore to purchase something and the person already has your pin sef what you should do is to change your email password and send google playstore an email telling them that someone hacked you email account to purchase something that you were not the one and remove your card from the playstore if not the person will still be talking your money
It’s a shame that Nigerian banks don’t have the authority to retrieve the girl’s money. In the USA, if this happened, the banks have all the power to get the customer back their money and it won’t even take a month to get it back. Nigerian banks have no power at all. That means that the Nigerian banks offer zero protection after looking at this article. So all of these fees are being taken out everyday by the banks and they can’t offer you basic protection? That’s laughable and it seems like you’re better off just keeping your money hidden inside your house.
This exact same thing happened to me and after several complaints they said thesame thing. Mine was #64,000. They reversed #32,000 and claimed the second #32,000 can’t be reversed because the “merchant” already rendered the service. Mine also was Google play and their claim was that someone close to me used my card for the transaction which I am so sure nothing like that happened.
That bank is gone, for real.
God will punish GT Bank it’s management and their useless upgrades.
What is paining me more is the uncountable six naira(6) like up to twenty times they are always removing from my money on a daily basis, without any trasaction o, claiming its my network provider.
This is how I lost 48000 to providus bank, till today, didn’t get my money
I was also affected by the unauthorised debit this week. There was an initial 50,430k debit, which was reversed as I was about to send an email to GTbank. However, I later discovered that 83k was debited. I sent an email across, and my full details were requested, which I provided. The next day, I sent a reminder to gtbank in which the response I got was that the transaction was dated back to 2022. I have racked my brain to remember the transaction, which I never did with any POS vendor; I replied to the mail that I never authorised any of those for over 2years but have yet to get a response from gtbank.
Why does GT account holders have this kind of issues all the time, same thing happened to my wife’s account 55 thousand naira was withdrawn from her account without her authorization, she complained and nothing happened. Why GTbank all the time
Same happen to me October 31 a sum of 128289 was debited from my account I logged a complaint in bank same email was forwarded to me
The same thing happened to me. N19,500 was taken from my account by GooglePlay, and GT told me that they cannot recover the money.
I have same issue pending in GTBank to Tone of 300k please i need help too on how to get my money back
G T Bank is the best
The Description shows that it is a Google subscription transaction. The victim should investigate people around him/her. People who have access to her card
Dear Toying akinlabi, the fault wasn’t from your bank, you may have subscribed to any of Google Play apps on your phone which is why the money was deducted. Talking from experience as I have encountered the same thing and I was able to get my money back after 3 weeks, infact I got double of my money back.
Immediately you saw the debit came from Google Play Incase of next time go to your play store on your phone, they have a refund policy and immediately unsubscribe to any of the apps you may have subscribed to.
For more information on how to all of these things you can check YouTube videos for step by steps on how to get your money back.
It’s indeed a simple process.
Peace.
Someone close to him have use his card to purchase Gun or other weapon on a game like COD
I experienced this same thing with UBA in October…a sum of N2,910,000 was debited from my account and UBA did not do anything at helping with funds recovery even after laying complaint severally… Nigerian banks are all fraudulent banks especially UBA
If she hasn’t been using the service Google play charged her for. She should contact play store her self and initiate a refund , it has happened to me and the refund was done in 7 business days . Contact Google play Gtbank can’t do anything until the refund is initiated from Google play , that is if she isn’t using the service she was charged for oooo, if she has been using the service OYO is her case because they know how to check
My account was debited of 62,000 naira saying I bought something from Google Play NG. And dey refused to refund even after I showed proof of my Google account not having such transaction. GTBank is defrauding it’s customers and this is so wrong.