A sterling bank customer identified as Ben Emeka Uzokwe has called out the bank for allegedly debiting his corporate account of N20 million on Friday, June 2, 2023 without the company initiating any such transaction.
The UK-based customer in a statement to Prime Business Africa said as of the time of filing this report, the spurious debit on his Sterling Bank Corporate Account, “Emekauts Enterprise’, Account number 0073494873, domiciled at the Balogun Trade Fair, Lagos branch, has not been reversed 24 hours after the incident happened.
There are indications that several other customer accounts may have also been debited of hundreds of millions of Naira in similar circumstances this weekend in what is believed to be a major glitch in the bank’s Internet Banking platform and the Sterling Bank Pro App.
“Another officer confided in me (to say that) it’s not only (from) my company Sterling withdrew money,” the customer said.
“Are you aware that Sterling Bank internet banking is down since Friday morning to date?,” Uzokwe asked in a chat with PBA Correspondent on Saturday morning. “Not only that Sterling Bank debited many corporate accounts illegally same yesterday, Sterling Bank withdrew N20, 000,000 from our corporate account yesterday illegally,” Mr Uzokwe said in a chat with PBA Correspondent.
“I was on the phone and Whatsapp with chat throughout yesterday (Friday). She (Account officer) keeps promising Sterling Bank will credit our account from N20,000,000 they took out of our company account. To our greatest surprise, Sterling Bank didn’t credit (the) account and also Sterling Bank Pro is still down more than 24 hours.”
Uzokwe further said subsequent to his discussion with the account officer, the Branch Manager actually called him early Saturday morning, promising that the N20 million will be reversed immediately”; but five hours later, the money had not been returned to the account.
When PBA asked what the Bank Manager said was the issue with the account, Uzokwe quoted the officer as saying that the illegal debit was due to a system failure.”
Uzokwe disclosed that “Our lawyer might sue Sterling Bank; more than 24 hours our N20 million fund is not in our account.”
