Other Bank Customers Should Learn From My Victory Over Zenith Bank.

On June 1, 2019, I wrote a story about my ugly experience in the hands of Zenith Bank PLC; how it wanted to play a fast one on me. For those who did not read that story, please, try and do so.

Anyway, let me still paraphrase the story here for you to get the idea behind it.

I travelled to Warri for business in February this year (2019) and went to one of the Zenith Bank branches there to make a withdrawal.

As I inserted my ‘Visa’ debit card in one of the bank’s Automated Teller Machine, ATM, I got the following error message: “Card not smart.” I tried it two more times and got the same error message. I was utterly disturbed because the card was still looking new and fresh and still had about three years to live before expiration.

When I returned to my base, where my account was domiciled, I went to the bank to register my protest about the ugly experience.

After lodging my complaint, I was asked to apply for a new one. I did just that and was issued a ‘Master Card’ as a replacement of my former Visa card.

I didn’t expect to be charged for such a reissue, since the card was still looking new and fresh and still had a long time before expiration, but contrary to my expectation, I was charged the usual debit card issuance fee of N1000 (one thousand naira). It was a bitter pill for me to swallow.

Two months later, the unexpected happened. The bank shockingly and surprisingly debited me for the maintenance of both the rested Visa card and the reissued Master card. This forced me to abandon the account in question, immediately.

The next thing I did was to send a letter of complaint to the bank’s headquarters in Lagos.  But guess what happened! For more than five months the bank kept dribbling me. But because I knew what I wanted and how to fight for my right, I kept on pressurizing and bombarding it with mails.

In spite of my constant mention of the case on my blog, on Facebook and on Twitter, the bank kept playing games, as if it didn’t know that it had offended me.

It wasn’t until last August, five months after the beginning of the whole drama, that the bank shamefully and disgracefully reversed the wrong entry it made to my account.  My lawyers advised me to take the matter to court, but I decided to leave everything to God since the bank has rectified the anomaly.

The amount involved was just N52.50. Too small for me to complain about? I know some people who do not have an ordinary knowledge of arithmetic would be wondering why on earth should I be fighting for mere N52.50.

The lesson I want you to learn from this is not that I wanted the money badly. The point is that I wanted Zenith Bank and other banks in Nigeria that are involved in such dirty practices to stop it henceforth. With immediate alacrity, as one of my friends in the village would say.

My experience has shown that most of the banks in Nigeria are fond of some dirty practices like the one Zenith bank unsuccessfully pulled on me. And that most Nigerian bank customers are very careless in disposing such tricks with a wave of hand.

That shouldn’t be.

If what Zenith Bank did to me was done to one million other Nigerian bank customers, which is possible, and such customers decide to overlook it because the amount involved was very small, it means the bank or banks involved would have succeeded in swindling Nigeria and Nigerians of N52,500,000 (fifty-two million, five hundred thousand naira).

Is this a small figure, the current rate of inflation notwithstanding?  The Answer is NO!

If this happens every month and in all the twelve months in a year, which is also possible, Nigeria would have lost millions, if not trillions of naira, annually. Don’t you think so?

I want to use this opportunity, therefore, to advise bank customers in Nigeria to always be observant and wary of any entry made to their bank account. Any strange or wrong entry should be quickly investigated, no matter how small it might be, with a view to getting it reversed or corrected.

Nigerians should not consider any amount of money too small to lose or to complain about. They should also not be ashamed to complain of small amounts of money – as some people do, because little drops of water make an ocean mightier.

As an accountant by training, I was taught that a very little amount of money multiplied by a large number gives you a large amount of money. Think about it also!

Again, complaining over a matter of this nature would constantly keep our banks in check. For example, I know that Zenith Bank would never think of repeating what it did to me.

If at all it’d, it would think twice before doing so. The bank should go ahead and scam other of its customers, and not me.

I may not have the financial muscle to fight it in case it repeats that nonsense, but I’ll give it a bad publicity, whose monetary value would be higher that my financial loss.

I Promise!

Other Bank Customers Should Learn From My Victory Over Zenith Bank.