Tolu Akinola (not real name), an electrician living in Lagos, sent N10,000 to an unintended recipient in July, but First Bank, the recipient bank, would not respond to offer or deny him help.

Akinola reached out to EQ on Thursday. He narrated how he sent the N10,000 from his Access Bank account to a wrong First Bank account in July.

Akinola’s bank statement of the mistaken transaction

Akinola told EQ that he contacted Access Bank when he realised he had sent the money to the wrong account.

“I have gone to Access Bank to lay a complaint, and they told me they had sent a mail to First Bank. I told the person I intended to send the money to, that she should also inform First Bank about it,” Akinola told EQ.

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“First Bank told her that I was the one who should contact my bank. When I did, Access Bank only repeated that they had sent a mail to First Bank and that there was nothing they could do beyond that.”

Akinola said that he had not got any response despite contacting Access Bank on two occasions.

When EQ contacted Access Bank via email on Friday, it said that the customer should reach out personally, again.

Access bank’s response to EQ on Friday

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EQ also sent an email to First Bank, but it responded that it could not intervene because it was “restricted from disclosing information about a customer’s account to third parties”.

“We are restricted from disclosing information about a customer’s account to third parties” was First bank’s email response to EQ on Friday

EQ also went further to contact First Bank through a phone call on the same day, but it’s representative said that Akinola had to be with EQ on the call before the bank could intervene.

“To make enquiries on that account, you need to give us a call back when the person is there with you,” the First Bank customer care representative told EQ.
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