When a customer requested the PalmPay account details of Umoru Yusuf, a Kogi State-based Point of Sale (PoS) operator, for a N22.9 million transaction on October 21, it was nothing out of the ordinary.

However, when PalmPay flagged the transaction as erroneous days later, the PoS operator knew all was not well. His account was frozen along with N225,737 of his business funds.

Yusuf told EQ that he had provided his PalmPay account number to the customer around 8:00 am on that day as part of routine operations. He also said that the customer patronised him occasionally.

“But after that transaction, I have not seen the customer,” he said.

After providing his account number, he received N22,950,000 from a United Bank for Africa (UBA) account belonging to ‘Meheux Destiny’.

The money was transferred in tranches with five credit alerts; the first four transactions were N5 million each and the fifth was N2.95 million.

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The transactions.

The transactions.

“The customer then requested that the funds be disbursed to 10 different account numbers while the remaining balance was collected in cash. This was in line with standard PoS business operations,” Yusuf added.

PalmPay froze his account days later, and this, according to Yusuf, has impacted him negatively because the affected business account is his primary channel for receiving funds from customers.

When Yusuf reached out to PalmPay to lodge a complaint about his inaccessible funds, he was asked to provide the following: a screenshot of a signed handwritten letter addressed to the company, the purpose of the inflow into his account, receipt of the transaction from the sender’s bank, a legitimate identification card and a selfie of him holding the ID card. This was on November 7.

Yusuf said PalmPay still withheld his funds and demanded more evidence even after providing the requested documentation.

The email asking him to provide the listed documents.

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“They have been sluggish all this while. The last response I got from them was on Monday. They said they were investigating the matter and asked me to give them three to four working days,” the Kogi resident said.

EQ emailed Femi Hanson, PalmPay’s Head of Marketing, on Wednesday. Two other email addresses belonging to the company were copied in the email.

When EQ called Hanson to notify him of the media inquiry that day, he said he would look into it and provide feedback.

As of Friday, the only relevant feedback that had been sent was from Awobona Damilola, a customer care agent, who wrote: Please inform the agent to provide for further assistance: details of the sender, attach the POS terminal ID and serial number, shop photo and the machine and all the third party transfer receipts.
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