A Lagos-based bank customer, Onifade Isaac, has
said that he lost N4.6m to an unauthorised transaction from his Guaranty Trust
Bank account without receiving any SMS alert notifying him of the transfer.
The incident, which occurred on August 22,
2026, has renewed public concern over the reliability of mobile banking
security alerts as more Nigerians report silent, unauthorised debits from their
accounts.
According to Isaac, who resides in the Alimosho area of Lagos State and works as a warehouse manager, the sum was moved from his GTB savings account through the bank’s mobile app to a Pocket App account bearing the name Zahara’u Iliyasu.
“On the 22nd of August 2026 at 11:49 am, the
sum of N4.6m was fraudulently moved out of my account through the GTB Mobile
App,” he said.
“I did not know of this transaction until
evening when I needed to withdraw a small amount of money to settle a family
need, and I was told I had insufficient balance,” he added.
Isaac further explained that he only discovered
the fraud after checking his account independently, as no notification had been
sent to him at the time of the transaction.
“I wasn’t sent any SMS alert for that
transaction. Immediately after I noticed, I called GTBank customer service,
being a weekend, to notify them,” he stated.
He added that the bank’s customer service team
acknowledged the report and gave instructions to block both his account and the
recipient’s account, in addition to placing a “Do Not Debit” order on the
receiving account.
“It was acknowledged with instructions to block
my account as well as the recipient account, and place a Do Not Debit on the
recipient account,” he said.
However, Isaac said that when he visited the
bank in person the following Monday, he was informed that despite the block,
the funds had already been withdrawn.
“I went straight to my bank to ask them if they
had blocked the account and the recipient account, which they said yes, it has
been done. After some days, I was told that the funds had been utilised by the
recipient,” he added.
Isaac made available to The PUNCH documents to
support the claim. They include an affidavit deposed at the Chief Magistrate
Court of Lagos State, Yaba Magisterial District, dated August 26, 2026, in
which he stated under oath that Guaranty Trust Bank “completely failed to send
me an implied/mandatory One Time Password to authorise this mobile app
login/transfer, nor did I receive any SMS transaction alert despite my phone
network being fully active and in my possession.”
The affidavit further sought “an immediate
reversal and full restitution” of the stolen sum.
A police extract from the crime diary of the
Nigeria Police Force, dated Thursday, August 27, 2026, corroborates the
account, recording that Isaac reported to the station with the affidavit and
stated that the bank failed to send him an OTP or an SMS transaction alert,
despite his phone network being fully active and in his possession.
An email response from GTB’s E-Fraud, Analytics
and e-Channel Security Group, sent on August 22, 2026, the same day as the
incident, appeared to confirm that action had been taken.
“Please be informed that your account has been
blocked to prevent unauthorised access to your account,” the bank’s
representative, Hannah Oguntade, wrote.
“The debit has been escalated to the receiving
bank,” she added.
A bank statement covering the period August 1
to August 24, 2026, shows the account’s closing balance fell to N10,446.86,
from an opening balance of N4,395,275.11, with a single outward transfer of
N4,600,000 recorded on August 22, 2026, described in the statement as an
“Outward Transfer to Pckapp – Zahara’u Iliyasu.” The record shows the
transaction effectively wiped out the account’s entire standing balance in one
transfer.
Efforts by The PUNCH to get the management of
GTBank to react to the development were unsuccessful as of press time.
The development has raised fresh questions
about the effectiveness of banks’ fraud-response mechanisms, particularly the
actual enforcement power of a “Do Not Debit” instruction once issued, and how
quickly such freezes are implemented across banking and fintech platforms.
Industry watchers say the case highlights a
widening gap in Nigeria’s growing mobile-first banking ecosystem, where
transactions routed through third-party payment platforms may not always be
frozen in real time, even after a bank has flagged them as fraudulent.
The case adds to a growing list of similar
complaints. Two customers of Access Bank had separately reported unauthorised
debits of N3m and N500,000 from their accounts in recent weeks, according to
social media reports, suggesting the trend may not be isolated to a single
financial institution.
Questions have also been raised about what role
the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System play
in setting standard recovery timelines once a “Do Not Debit” order is placed,
and why funds can still be accessed by a flagged recipient after such an order
is issued.
Isaac said the outcome of his case remains uncertain,
despite submitting the affidavit and police report to the bank.
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