John Moye (real name withheld), an Abuja resident, lost $83.25 on October 31 when the amount left his account without his authorisation.
Moye told FIJ that he did not initiate the transaction on his domiciliary account, which occurred in multiple debits of $9.25 each.
What he found more surprising was the description in each unauthorised withdrawal: POS/WEB PMT APPLE.COM/BILL ITUNES.COM IE. Moye said he did not subscribe to any services offered by Apple, a technology company.
The unauthorised transactions.
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After noticing the unusual transactions in his domiciliary account, he called Access Bank on October 31 and on November 1. He could not get hold of a customer care agent to report the incident to.
However, he emailed the bank on the day of the incident.
“My initial complaint via email on October 31 was not acknowledged or responded to,” the Abuja resident told FIJ.
The email he sent after noticing the unauthorised transactions.
“After several attempts to call to no avail and an email which was never responded to, I called my account officer who told me he had left the bank.
“But he assisted in calling someone from my branch, who later sent me an email on November 1 requesting if it was a fraudulent transaction which I confirmed it must be.”
FIJ gathered that this did not yield a positive response on how Moye would recoup his lost funds. He then sent another email to the bank on November 5.
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He got two messages from the bank via SMS on November 6. The first response at 6:48 pm read: “Fraud has been received. An update will be provided on 1/13/2025.”
But Access Bank sent another message at 8:44 pm, stating “Fraud is closed with feedback: We empathise on loss of funds.”
“That was the last message I received regarding the case,” Moye told FIJ.
FIJ learnt that Access Bank closed the fraud report without attempting to help Moye recover his missing $83.25.
In a response to FIJ’s message sent via X on Wednesday, Access Bank wrote: “Thank you for reaching out to us. I am so sorry to learn of the unauthorised debit on customer’s account.
“Kindly inform our customer to send us a DM or reach out to us on our 24-hour Contact Center for further assistance.”
The post Abuja Man’s Account Got Unauthorised $83.25 Debit. Access Bank Only Offered ‘Empathy’ appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.