Gabriella Ukiho, a Nigerian student in Ukraine, has narrated the ill-treatment she suffered in the hands of John Oke, the CEO of Wallets Africa, an online financial service provider, after the company refused to help her complete a ₦290,000 transaction meant for her tuition fees payment.

While speaking to FIJ on the issue, Ukiho said she created an account with Wallets Africa on September 19 so she could pay her tuition fees.

“I opened an account with Wallets Africa on September 19 so that I can link the account to my Wise account in order to pay the tuition fee in my school in Ukraine,” Ukiho said.

“Despite the ongoing war, classes are still being held online.

“I complied with all the instructions I was given by uploading all the required documents for verification and expected the verification to be done within three days, and according to company’s usual practice.”

Ukiho said that, apart from the day she created the wallet, she did not carry out any other transaction on the account until October 24 when she transferred N290,000 to it in two tranches.

“On October 24, I carried out two transactions consecutively on the account. The first was N20,000 and few minutes later, I transferred N270,000,” she said.

After depositing the sum into the wallet, the student said she attempted making the tuition payment but encountered challenges.

“I was surprised that when I wanted to pay my tuition fees with the money, I could not as I started getting error messages that I should upload all documents that I had already uploaded successfully in the past,” Ukiho said.

“I decided to reach out to Wallets Africa via their live chat feature on their website on the same day, but my complaint was not responded to.

“I further took my complaint to their Twitter and Instagram pages and eventually got a response from one of their representatives who identified herself as Enyo.

“She asked me to forward my documents and after submitting everything like she requested, she told me she had verified my account and that I could now proceed with the payment.

“I chose to wait for 24 additional hours before doing anything on the account.”

Ukiho also said she felt the account would have been functional after the intervention of the Wallets Africa representative and the 24 hour-waiting-period she had.

However, she was unable to consummate the transaction when she tried a second time.

“I completely thought the intervention of the company’s representative had eliminated the problem until I attempted a transaction on the platform on October 25 and found out that nothing had been done to resolve my request,” the student said.

“At that point, my frustration led me to check on the internet for other ways of getting out of the problem. But what I saw was a pool of negative reviews from many of the company’s customers who were having issues similar to mine.”

In a bid to get a solution to the issue, Ukiho said rather than get a response to a direct message she sent to John Oke, the fintech’s CEO, via his official Twitter handle, she was instantly blocked by him on the social media platform.

“I sent a direct message to John Oke, their CEO on Twitter, but I got a shocking reaction from him in return. He blocked me on his account and that of the company’s as well,” she told FIJ.

“Honestly speaking, I didn’t expect to go through this terrible experience in the hands of Wallets Africa. My studentship is at stake if I am unable to pay my school fees on or before the deadline given by the school.”

FIJ sent an email and a text message to the company for comments on the matter but both had not been responded to at press time.