How I lost N300K at Zenith Bank ATM @ Ajala Bus Stop

A Lagosian has narrated how fraudsters cleaned out her account after using an ATM machine at Zenith Bank, Ijaye Ojokoro branch by Ajala Bus Stop on Lagos- Abeokuta Expressway, just before Ijaye and Alagbado bus stops.

According to her she was returning from a church vigil on Saturday, October 13, when she decided to get some cash at the ATM shortly after 5:00am.

Her account: “All I wanted was N5000 to enable me buy some food for the weekend. There was one other gentleman behind me, pretending to be waiting to use the machine after me. I inserted my Skye bank card, input my pin and amount desired. The machine did not dispense any cash and refused to release my card. I waited.

“One particular security man then kept harassing me to leave the premises since the thing did not give me money. I protested that it was still holding my card. He said there was nothing I could do until Monday. I stayed put.

“The security guy was going up and down complaining loudly that I was hanging around the bank with my brother. Then he said, ‘Madam, you need to leave this place’. I confronted him and we altercated for a bit, during which time he insisted that the machine often behaved like that and that the card would be retrieved on Monday by Zenith officials. Then, I left with my brother and went to bed.

“By the time I woke up around 8am, they had wiped out my account. They started withdrawing from 5:30 am which means, they just waited for me to go before retrieving the card. They withdrew cash from that same ATM and took it to other ATMs to withdraw cash till they cleaned out about N300k. I’m struggling alone and have no idea where my next meal will come from.

“When I rushed to Zenith Bank, Ajala Bus Stop, another security man had resumed shift. While I was making noise, people came around, saying things like, ‘Not again!’ It was the sympathisers that made me realise that it was a frequent occurrence at that branch of Zenith Bank. One woman said she had lost count of men and women rushing to the ATM to make scenes, crying and rolling on the floor mostly on weekends. The other people I shared my experience with at home blamed me for going there, saying they stopped using the branch’s ATM long ago because of stories of robbery and fraud they hear about the place.

“I plan to make their head office aware of the bad reputation this branch is giving Zenith bank around Ijaye/ Alagbado Axis. They need to probe the place. I suspect collusion between that security man and the guy hanging around as a customer when I was there,” she said.

There must be a new trick being employed. In the past, once a card failed to come out, it could only be retrieved from the back end by bank officials.

It is curious how the fraudsters were able to retrieve a card that failed to come out after a failed transaction.

Experts will need to look into that. Meanwhile, ATM users need to be more careful with this development.