Lawrence Ogundipe, a customer of First City Monument Bank (FCMB), told FIJ how an attempted withdrawal of 20,000 naira he made at a Fidelity Bank Automated Teller Machine (ATM) was never successful , but his bank claims it was.

Ogundipe on October 19, 2020, used the said ATM in Alimosho Local Government Area in Lagos, but received an “invalid transaction” message before his debit card was ejected from the machine.

Despite the failure of the machine to meet his request, the FCMB informed him of a debit of the same amount from his account and an additional N35 for the use of another bank’s machine. .

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“It was a Sunday; there were no security guards and the bank was not open, so I could not make a complaint physically,” he told FIJ.

After waiting for a cancellation that never happened, he emailed FCMB customer service a day later.

In the bank’s letter response made available to FIJ, it asked Ogundipe to allow it to investigate for three days, after which the money would be ‘returned to your account if we confirm the transaction was unsuccessful’ .

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However, three days later, the FCMB did not return the funds. On October 29, the bank claimed via email that its transaction was successful.

Dissatisfied with the resolution, Ogundipe asked for the CCTV footage of the ATM to prove that the money had indeed been dispensed.

The FCMB acknowledged his request and promised to provide said images between 5 and 30 working days, but two years later still claims that Fidelity Bank did not send the images.

The IFJ sent emails to FCMB and Ogundipe’s account manager, but both emails had not yet been answered at press time.