Union Bank, a Nigerian local money deposit bank, has failed to return N63,000 deducted from Taofik Raimi’s account when he attempted to credit a point of sale (PoS) money merchant on January 29.

Raimi, a local trader at Alaaka market in Oyo State, explained to FIJ that he intended to withdraw the said amount via a PoS machine in January but the transaction was unsuccessful. He attributed the failure to poor network reception.

He said, “On January 29, I asked a PoS operator, whom I know very well, to transfer N63,000 to a certain bank account on my behalf. I then told him that I would refund the money to him when the transaction was completed.

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“Accordingly, he sent the money from his business account to the account. I then gave him my bank card to remove his money from my account.

“Unfortunately, the bank deducted my money without crediting it to the PoS operator’s account. I could understand that it was a network connectivity challenge, and I hoped it would not take longer time than necessary to have it reversed.

“However, my experience has shown me that my expectation was out of tune with the bank’s response time. I sometimes ask myself if this delay is not deliberate.

“The PoS merchant logged a complaint via his OPay terminal and the online microfinance bank confirmed that they had resolved the issue from their end and asked me to contact my bank.”

Asked if he had complained to the person in question, the local farm produce marketer explained that he had visited the bank’s branch in Oyo three times consecutively with no positive result.

“I have gone to their branch in Oyo town three times together with the PoS businessman. He is really pressurising me to return his money because it was part of his business funds.

“He had lamented to me many times that his business had been badly affected because of this and I understand his pain. But I don’t have a means of repaying him unless the bank returns my money.

“In addition to our visitation to their branch, he had also submitted a mail to their official email address on my behalf, but it was not delivered. It appeared the email address was not functional.”

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This newspaper emailed the bank on March 27 and 30 via its official email address, [email protected], for a comment on the story, but got delivery error messages on two occasions.

Temilayo, a call centre agent of the financial institution, spoke with FIJ over the phone on Monday and requested our reporter to visit a branch or send an email. The email sent afterwards had not been responded to at press time.