I just received my money and was pleasantly surprised. I cannot thank you and your organisation enough, for both extreme generosity and swiftness of action.
The above were the words of Tawa Iyanu (real name withheld), a SmartCash Payment Service Bank (PSB) customer based in Oyo State, to EQ on Monday morning.
As reported by EQ on Saturday afternoon, Iyanu had previously been unable to access her N99,846 due to an issue she had unsuccessfully tried to resolve for months.
READ MORE: SmartCash PSB Customer’s N99,846 Disappears After ‘Upgrade Issues’ Deactivation
The bank debited the entire money from her SmartCash wallet on September 19 and also deactivated her account to resolve the upgrade issues that had prevented her from accessing her funds.
Before this was done in early September, SmartCash PSB had told Iyanu that a new account would be created for her and her money would be returned.
However, none of these promises was fulfilled: she could not create a new account, as she kept getting an error notification. Since she could not create a new account, there was no way she could recover the money that was debited.
She made several calls and sent emails to the digital bank for resolution but help seemed far away as they kept telling her they would work on it.
EQ contacted SmartCash PSB via phone calls on Thursday and relayed how Iyanu had encountered nothing but frustration at the point of registering a new account as well as how this affected her desire to recover her money.
A customer care agent had asked that Iyanu send an email, which she did that Thursday. EQ also sent an email that same day to follow up on the phone conversation with the agent.
By the time SmartCash PSB responded on Friday to both emails sent by EQ and Iyanu, the bank said the complaint had been escalated to the appropriate unit for a review.
EQ published a report on the incident on Saturday afternoon. Later that evening, Iyanu received three separate calls from SmartCash PSB, with efforts in place to address the issue she had been facing.
READ ALSO: Days After EQ’s Intervention, OPay Releases Customer’s N50,100 Stuck Since 2023
A SmartCash customer agent also chatted with her and assured her that the issue would be resolved and her money would be refunded.
Iyanu had a new account by Sunday afternoon, and her account was credited with the N99,846 on Monday morning, two days after EQ’s story.
“They called me this [Monday] morning that they have refunded me. I did a transfer of N50,000 from the money, but [could not move the remaining because] I entered the [transfer] limit. I will do the remaining on Tuesday,” she told EQ while expressing her gratitude.
The post After EQ’s Story, SmartCash PSB Fixes Customer’s Account Issue, Refunds Her N99,846 appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.