UBA customer’s account hacked, loses N318,600

●●As Bank says it can’t help

A Kaduna-based PoS agent, Ofetayo Moshood, has disclosed
how the sum of N318,600 was fraudulently withdrawn from his United Bank for Africa (UBA) account.

Moshood, who disclosed this to the FIJ, said the transaction took place on April 11, after the close of business.

He said: “On April 11, after I had finished my business for the day, I checked my balance and saw N318,000.

“Afterwards, I locked up my shop to head home, only to receive debits of N200,000, N100,000, and N8,600, all within a minute.”

The PoS agent said he immediately called his account officer and the bank’s fraud unit to block the account of the recipient, but there was no positive response from them.

He said: “I called my account officer immediately, but there was no response from him. I also contacted one of the bank’s customer care representatives, who didn’t answer my call.

“I then called UBA’s fraud unit to report the incident to them. I also asked them to block the beneficiary of the stolen money.”

Moshood said when he visited the bank on April 12 to complain formally, he was baffled that the bank could accuse him of compromising his details, which he refuted, prompting the bank to admit that though its security had been breached, the bank could not help him.

“The following day, I visited the bank to complain, but they said I had compromised my details. I insisted it didn’t happen, because I use the agent app, which has peculiar operations,” he said.

“For the agent app, you can only log in with your password. Also, you can’t perform any transaction without the password, after which you will receive a onetime password, but I didn’t get any.

“Even when I tried to log in and also reset my password, I experienced difficulty. It was more like someone had cloned my account.

“My account officer later told me I was not the only victim, and that nearly everyone using the bank’s PoS had their accounts hacked. He said this was caused by a breach in their security, and that there was nothing they could do about it.

“This money is not even mine. I borrowed it to start the business, but UBA is about to make life difficult for me.”

Surprisingly, FIJ’s email sent to the UBA since Monday had not been responded to at press time.