Angry customer sues Ecobank over missing US$34,500

Source close to Ecobank at the ridge branch has revealed that a customer has dragged the bank to court over a missing US$34,500.00 from his account.

The source indicated that the amount involved was transfer between two Ecobank Accounts in early 2012 and all efforts for the bank to re-credit the account have failed because the bank claims they are not liable.

The customer therefore decided to institute legal action to retrieve the money because the bank’s behavior has brought untold hardship on him.

Court Documents available to the paper indicates that the customer sometime in January 2009, with advice from the defendant Bank, applied for internet Banking Services to enable him conduct transactions on his account online.

Two accounts, according to the suit are connected via the short message system (sms) to each other such that upon any transfer from the Cedi into the Forex Account, he receives an immediate sms alert.

Throughout the whole year, the customer never used the internet Banking facility even once as he was not able to access his account online using the details provided by Ecobank.

He therefore wrote to the Defendant Bank in December 2009 to request that the internet facility be canceled since he was never able to use it anyway and yet he was charged every month for its maintenance.

Without any communication to his request for the cancellation in almost two years, he received correspondence from the Bank furnishing him with details of “his internet bank account” log in asking him to visit any of the branches of the Bank to activate the account so he can transact business online. The customer did not comply with any of these requests or invitations to activate the service on his account as he had previously notified the bank to cancel it.

However, the customer noticed sometime in February 2012, two strange deductions amounting to Thirty-Four Thousand, Five Hundred United States Dollars (US$34,500.00) from his United States Dollar Account without his consent, knowledge, explanation or justification.

He immediately protested, notified the Bank and demanded that the account be re-credited with the amount immediately.