Zenith Bank Agrees To Pay Lady Who Lost Over N4m To Illegal Debit, N800,500

A Lagos based resident former Zenith bank employee, Chiamaka Agim has narrated how over N4 million mysteriously grew wing and flew out from her Zenith Bank account.

In a viral video uploaded on her twitter page last week Tuesday, she recounts how her unfortunate ordeal began while in tears.

@ZenithBank Refund my 4 million naira.😭😭😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/QjqcjaJPk4

— Chiamaka Jennifer (@a_ma_ka__) January 10, 2023

She opened the bank account that was cleared of all her savings while she was working at Zenith Bank, according to a report on FIJ.

On that faithful day, she was relaxing in her apartment on the evening of January 9, 2023, when she received three alerts for debits which added up to N4.039 million.

“When I received the first alert around 8.25, I actually thought it was a WhatsApp message. I checked it and was shocked to see that it was an alert of N3.715 million,” she said.

“I was confused because I did not authorise any transaction, so I logged in to my bank app to check what was happening. That was when I got another debit alert of N222,000 and then I got the third one of N102,000.

Zenith Bank officials did not take her complaint seriously when she reported the incident at two branches of the bank in the Yaba area of the state on Tuesday.

She said was asked to write a letter of complaint, which she did and submitted at each Zenith Bank branch.

“I first went to the branch at Herbert Macaulay, and I told the customer care representative that I needed to speak with the bank management. That was when a woman came out of her office and told me to accompany her back to the office,” she said.

“I don’t know if she is the branch manager, but I am sure she holds a top position. She said I should thank God that I am alive and that when there is life, there is hope.”

The ex-Zenith Bank staff member went to another branch in Alagomeji, Yaba, as she was not satisfied with the response from the first branch.

Although she said the manager at the second branch was nonchalant in his response at first, Agim noted that she still got the desired attention compared with the first branch she visited.

“After I had written a letter as instructed by the manager, he said they were going to look into it. He also said he would see what they could do before Friday,”

When contacted for comments, Zenith Bank told our reporter that the referenced complaint was being investigated and feedback was being communicated to the customer.

In a twist the following day, Zenith Bank told Agim that all that she can get from the N4 million that disappeared from account is a paltry sum N800,500.

“A Zenith Bank official called me around 6:00 pm on Wednesday,” the Lagos resident said.

Agim said she received the call hours after she went to Zenith Bank branch at Alagomeji to follow up on the complaint she lodged regarding the incident.

“The branch manager at Alagomeji said the bank was working on it and I would hear from them soon,” she said. “Then the bank called me in the evening, saying I should check my email.”

Out of the debited sum, N3.937 million went to an Access bank account while the remaining N102,000 was transferred to a UBA account.

Agim said the male bank official notified her during the phone conversation that the transaction was done via her e-token.

This revelation baffled Agim ,who said that she had never requested for an e-token from the bank.

“He made me look as if I did not know what I was saying because he insisted that I have a token. Perhaps they gave it to someone who is using it on my account,” she said.

“Then he said they were only able to salvage N800,500 from Access Bank. What I picked from the conversation was that I would only get this amount.

“He also said UBA told them that their customer does not depict a fraudster. I wondered how they were able to arrive at that conclusion.

“How can the bank make such a statement while I am in pains due to debits that I never consented to? So, how does a fraudster look?”

While Agim believes that a bank insider is responsible for the strange deduction from her account, she also feels Zenith Bank wants to scare her away so that the issue would be swept under the carpet.

“How can they give me N800,500 out of over N4 million? I am not going to let it go like that because it’s a huge amount of money,” she said.

In the document obtained , Zenith Bank informed Agim that the financial institution was not liable for the incident since her e-Token and four-digit secret PIN details were used to enroll on the Mobile Banking App on a device.

The bank also added that the same device was subsequently used to carry out the transactions.

Zenith bank is widely known for spending millions of dollars on CNN advertisement.