In late 2021, Babatunde Olayiwola, an Ibadan-based pharmacist, tried to make a transaction on his personal OPay account but to no avail. He later found out that his account was under a restriction.
The account would remain restricted for almost four years until FIJ contacted the bank.
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At, first Olayiwola thought the issue was one that would soon go away by taking simple steps as the bank ordered.
“They told me that my account was under a restriction and that I should go to a particular section on the app to unfreeze it. But I realised that the prompt was not resolving the issue at all,” Olayiwola said.
He also told FIJ that the affected OPay account was his personal account, while he also operated a separate one for his community pharmacy business.
One of OPay’s representatives once visited Olayiwola’s community pharmacy in Ibadan to market OPay terminals to them. He took advantage of this opportunity to form a friendship with the agent so as to fix his account but the customer service experience he got was far from helpful.
“I told him that I had a pending issue and he promised to attach me to somebody from their Ibadan office here. But unfortunately, the way and manner the person he connected me attended to me was everything short of customer service,” Olayiwola narrated.
“Although, I learnt that the person has left the organisation now.”
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Olayiwola said that he tried to follow up on his complaint after his sour customer service experience, yet, he could not get the issue resolved.
“Eventually, they said that I had to go to their Lagos office to resolve this matter. They alleged that there was a time that monies were going into different accounts, and they suspect that they could be proceeds from fraudulent activities,” Olayiwola told FIJ.
“They said they flagged some accounts then, and they later started unfreezing them back, and that probably mine would also be unfrozen at some point.”
Olayiwola had an OPay agent as a friendly contact with the company but they later exited the organisation to join Moniepoint. The same was the case for another OPay agent who replaced his friend.
“When they noticed that the terminals had been dormant, they sent another person. When the person came, I then told him about my own personal matter,” he said.
“At the end of the day, they still said I had to go to their office in Lagos before they could resolve the matter.
“About two years, N50,000 thereabout was there.”
On December 24, FIJ contacted Adeyemi Adekunle, OPay’s spokesperson, about Olayiwola’s situation. “I’ve sent it to the team handling (this) and will follow up accordingly,” he responded.
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On Monday, Olayiwola told FIJ that he has been able to use the app for the first time since 2021 without having to travel to Lagos.
“I woke up this morning to see this message from OPay. I have since confirmed by transferring the frozen amount for almost two years if not more. Thanks immensely for the assistance, FIJ crew. God bless the media outfit,” Olayiwola said.
The post One Week After FIJ’s Intervention, OPay Unfreezes Ibadan Pharmacist’s Account Blocked for 3 Years appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.