Ibukun Ogundinmu, a Lagos State-based student, has recounted how N645,000 vanished from her Kuda Bank account without her consent.

Speaking with FIJ, Ogundinmu said the events that led to the fraud began on September 2 when an unknown person sent N38,000 into her Kuda Bank account.

The undergraduate said she immediately contacted Kuda Bank to notify its officials of the transaction after seeing the credit notification.

“Someone made an erroneous transfer of N38,000 into my account on September 2 and I immediately reported the transaction to Kuda Bank,” Ogundinmu told FIJ.

READ ALSO: Kuda Bank Yet to Reverse Customer’s N29,000 One Month After Failed Online Transaction

“Upon reporting the erroneous transaction, Kuda Bank placed a lien on my account and restricted me from making any transaction for about a week.”

Ogundinmu said she later reached out to Kuda to complain about the restriction and its officials told her that her request to lift the restriction was being worked on.

“Three days after I was told that the lien removal was being worked on, I suddenly noticed I could no longer sign into my Kuda mobile application. I then sent them another email concerning the issue and they sent me a reset link from their official email handle,” Ogundinmu said.

“After resetting my password, Kuda sent me another mail saying that I had a BVN mismatch. I was then asked to send a picture of myself holding my ID card and I did that.

“They said the process was to make my account accessible and also remove the lien on it.”

Ogundinmu said after she had carried out the reset process, she still was unable to carry out transactions due to the restriction Kuda had not lifted.

While she was still trying to figure out what to do, N645,000 suddenly got wiped from her account in tranches.

The money was stolen on September 7.

The sum was transferred to unknown beneficiaries who operated Palmpay and OPay accounts. According to the student, the beneficiary account names were Marcus Mmagha Uzoegbu, Adesoji Babatunde Ajayi and Abdullahi Umar.

“I don’t know who these people are and I have never had any transaction with them in the past,” said Ogundinmu.

“How come they could send money out of my account while I couldn’t do the same? Kuda said my account was restricted but these people could access it freely.

READ ALSO: N500,000 Vanished From UNILORIN Student’s Kuda Account. He Almost Dropped Out

“All that was left in my account was the initial N38,000 I received from the unknown sender.”

The student said after the sum got stolen from her account, she sent Kuda Bank another email.

“It was at this point that Kuda Bank now said my account was now active for transactions,” said Ogundinmu.

“It was funny that I could then make transactions after everything I worked for had been stolen from my account.”

The student then visited Kuda Bank’s office on September 8, showing its officials the email account that had been sent to her for password reset.

“The Kuda Bank official then confirmed that the email had been sent by the financial institution. As a matter of fact, she also confirmed that all the instructions I received via mail came from them,” said Ogundinmu.

“The official then added that the dispute would be sorted out the following week.

“Surprisingly, Kuda Bank has not done anything about it. I am yet to understand how the account I was restricted from using was made available to hackers.”

When FIJ sent an email to Kuda Bank on Tuesday afternoon, the financial institution responded by saying it was working on how to recover the student’s stolen funds.

“Please note that we placed a lien on her account only on the disputed transaction that was erroneously transferred into her account and a restriction was placed on her account because she reported unauthorised transactions,” the bank wrote.

“Also, concerning the unauthorised debits from her account, it was escalated to our fraud team who have sent a mail to her and she is yet to reply, they have also reached out to the beneficiary banks for further assistance.”

Ogundinmu claimed Kuda Bank was not being sincere about the restriction that was placed on her account.