Published 19th Mar, 2022

By Emmanuel Uti

Olamide Ambali, a student at Ecotes University, Benin Republic, has accused the United Bank of Africa (UBA) of debiting him without his permission.

Ambali told FIJ that he had just returned from class on March 11 when he received a series of debit alert messages on his phone. He said UBA sent him a one-time password three minutes after he received the first debit message.

“I did not know what to do. I did not initiate any payment, but I got debited. The first debit alert I saw was N5,000. At the end of the third minute, only N35 was in my account. They wiped out N250,000,” he said.

Ambali said he immediately called his account manager after receiving the messages, but she told him she could not do much.

“She said she could do nothing about it because someone had wiped all my money off. Later, she accused me of involving my account with SportyPay. SportyPay? I do not know what it is. I do not gamble,” he said.

“Everything was suspicious. It felt like the UBA bankers were involved in this. They kept asking if I had anything to do with SportyPay, but as is the case, I had nothing with them. Why did I still lose my money despite receiving a one-time-password? I initiated nothing.”

When FIJ contacted UBA via their customer care number, their line did not connect. They had also not responded to an email sent to them at press time.

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