Union Bank Still Reliable? 87-yr-Old Trader Drags Union Bank To Court Over Scam

Union Bank is in the news, and this time, for the wrong reason. The bank has been dragged to Magistrate’s Court sitting at the Ojokoro, Agbado area of Lagos by an 87-year-old woman, Mrs Sanusi Adebisi, who claimed an amount of money was allegedly removed from her account without her consent.

The aged woman, a petty trader, said about N253,000 was illegally withdrawn from her Union Bank account through the Internet sometime in October 2013 and efforts to get back the money have proved futile.

The claimant told the court that she just got N200,000 of the sum from her cooperatives to operate the tumour in her eye and further said the tumour had worsened since the scam took place because she could no longer get the money needed to carrying out the operation.

The woman said she had been the sole signatory to her account since 1970s before her only daughter, Sanusi Ifedayo, was included as a joint signatory due to a health problem.

Ifedayo narrated that, “I had withdrawn N40,000 for Mama (mother) that day before the scam. It was my husband who went to greet her that very day that noticed the debit alerts on her phone.

“I wrote a letter of complaint to the bank and its officials promised to investigate the matter. After a week, I was told that the money was withdrawn online by an unknown person. I don’t even know how to operate a Facebook account not to talk of using Internet for transaction. The bank is in best position to tell us what transpired.”

According to Punch, “the claimant’s counsel, Gbenga Julius, presented before the court, a signed and stamped printout of his client’s statement of account reportedly accessed from the Union Bank – an exhibit the defence counsel, Seyi Solaja, refuted.

“Solaja maintained that the exhibit was not the same as the one the bank issues to its customers, adding that it was null and void under Section 84 of Evidence Act.”

Meanwhile, the matter was adjourned for further hearing to July 27, 2014 by the magistrate, Mrs T Akani.