Regina Agbo, an Abuja resident, has narrated how N1.3 million vanished from her Zenith Bank account after an Eco Bank ATM retained her card.

Agbo told FIJ that Zenith Bank and Eco Bank asked her to visit each other several times but it all yielded no success despite involving the police.

She said she was at an Eco Bank branch in Wuse 2 on March 9, 2023, to transfer some money when the machine swallowed her card.

When she inserted her card the first time, the ATM rejected it. On the second attempt, she said, her card refused to come out.

Being her salary account and one she’d been saving her son’s tuition in, she waited for a while because she was not sure if the machine had trapped her card or if it was a network issue. 

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She said that while she was waiting, she saw a colleague on the road who gave up their card upon request.

“When I inserted my colleague’s card, the ATM rejected it. I bade them farewell and let them know I could not leave because of the amount in the account,” Agbo told FIJ. 

When she couldn’t wait any longer as it was getting late, Agbo called a security official of the Eco Bank branch to confirm if her card had been retained by the ATM, and he did confirm it was trapped.

According to Agbo, the security official inserted his card into the ATM, and it accepted it. He then told her to leave, saying the card was safe.

Agbo said on her way to the office, which is a 12-minute walk, she tried using Zenith Bank USSD to block the card but it did not work. 

“As soon as I entered the office, the next thing I received was debit alert messages in three tranches, the first being N500,000. I screamed. I had to run back to the bank that evening and asked what had happened,” she said.

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“A security official said there was nothing they could do and that I should come back the next day. The following day, I went there. The staffer in charge of the ATM said they learned of what had happened but didn’t find a card when they checked the ATM.

“I asked for the CCTV footage, but the bank said I needed a police letter and a court document for that. The police collected money from me, but I didn’t see any results. They even said I should pay N150,000 for them to track the account that received the money. I told them I didn’t have, and they said there was nothing they could do.”

When FIJ emailed Zenith Bank for comments, they did not respond.