It’s been six months and 18 days since N554,256 was mysteriously withdrawn from the Fidelity Bank account of Patience Adeshina, a Lagos resident.
FIJ learnt that the money was meant for her In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) procedure on August 8.
It was withdrawn from her account on August 3 after an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) at the Fidelity Bank branch in the Kola area of Lagos seized her card. Despite repeated complaints to the bank and the police, the money has not been recovered.
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Adeshina told FIJ that she had asked her husband to transfer some money on her behalf using her debit card on that fateful day in 2024. “I told my husband to transfer money with my ATM card due to Fidelity Bank’s shortcomings sometimes,” she disclosed.
“In the process of transferring the money via the ATM, it requested my phone number, which he typed out. But the transfer was not successful. It was cancelled, and we tried it three more times.”
Then the card got stuck in the machine.
“My husband said he heard a sound coming from inside the ATM as if someone was hitting the machine,” Adeshina told FIJ.
Adeshina said her husband inserted his personal debit card in the machine, and he was able to retrieve it but her bank card remained stuck in the machine.
“He informed the bank security that my card had been swallowed by the machine and added that he heard a sound as though someone was hitting the machine from the inside,” she said.
The security man told her husband that there was nothing they could do that day because it was a Saturday. Adeshina said she got to the Kola branch of Fidelity Bank the following Monday, August 5, as early as 6 am.
However, due to the ongoing nationwide #EndBadGovernance protest at the time, customers were not allowed to enter the banking hall. She went back to the bank the following day, but it was not open.
When she returned to Fidelity Bank on August 12, a bank official told her she only had N1,212 left. N554,256 had disappeared from her account.
“I was shocked because I did not receive any debit alert. It was when I printed out my statement of account that I found that the N554,256 was withdrawn from my account on August 3 when the ATM seized my card,” Adeshina said.
Her account statement.
“I filled out a form as instructed by the bank official to lay a complaint, but the bank officials have been reluctant to help out,” she said.
FIJ understands that Adeshina also reported the fraudulent transaction to a police station in the Alagbado area of the state, and she has visited the headquarters of her bank.
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“My husband and I went to the police station to report it, but the bank officials did not show up at the police station. When I asked for CCTV footage, the bank initially said there was no security officer on duty on that day. But when it was later obtained, it captured a security officer with another lady going into the bank,” Adeshina told FIJ.
“I have sent an email to the bank as well, yet the money is still missing.”
In response to the email FIJ sent on Monday, Adebowale Banzi, the team lead of Media and Internal Communications at Fidelity Bank, wrote: “We have shared our preliminary findings with the customer and will continue to provide support on the matter. Due to Customer Confidentiality Regulations, we are unable to provide details of this discussion to a third party.”
FIJ is aware that the bank reached out to Adeshina on Monday, asking her for further details on the reported transaction. The bank has not reached out to her since then.
The post Fidelity Bank Yet to Return Lagos Woman’s N554,256 That Vanished From Its ATM 6 Months Ago appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.