Why This Teacher’s Stolen N215,000 Story Has Nigerians Scared

When you register your account with your bank and you give them your phone number for OTP authentication, there is a peace of mind that comes with that. It makes us believe that if any transaction was to be happening on our card, then we'll immediately know, not send the OTP and put the thief in the mud.

But now, a story from Comfort Mufutau, a school teacher from Ogun State is causing national alarm. Every Nigerian with an operating bank account should be alarmed by this story because what happened to Comfort is simply a nightmare that nobody ever envisioned can happen today.

Here's what happened.

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According to the story published by The Punch, Comfort Mufutau, a 36 year old primary school teacher from Ogun state went to her GTBank mobile app with the intention of transferring the sum of N5,000 to somebody. Upon opening the app, Comfort discovered that her bank account had been emptied.

Comfort upon seeing the shocking information immediately went to her bank's branch in Sango, Ogun State to lodge a complaint and request a statement of account. While going through the bank statement, Comfort discovered that the missing money had been used to purchase recharge cards from Jumia, transactions she had not authorized.

According to words of Comfort herself:

On October 5, 2021, I was at home for the Teacher’s Day holiday and was about to transfer N5,000 to someone using my GT Bank app when I discovered that I could not see N215,000 in the account. I quickly went to the Sango 2 GTB branch to lodge a complaint. I told them to print my statement of account and we found out that my money was used to purchase something from Jumia. I contacted Jumia to look into the issue and its representative, one Tomi, replied that the money was used in purchasing recharge cards. I asked for the number used in purchasing the recharge cards but was told that they did not have the power to release the customer’s details.

In my GTB app, I saw that my balance remained N2,000 and I was also seeing a booked balance of N215,000 indicating that the money had been removed from my account because of an ongoing transaction. It was later I started receiving debit alerts for transactions I never initiated. The recharge cards were purchased at N10,000, N50,000 in four places, and N5,000, making N215,000. A banker at the GTB head office told me that the first debit of N10,000 was used to test if my money could be withdrawn.

I later received the debit alerts on October 7 and 8 for transactions done on the 4th and 5th. I did not give anyone OTP or initiate any transaction requiring OTP. Surprisingly, I saw seven OTPs I never initiated on my phone, but I was home alone and never received any call or gave anyone OTPs, so how was the transaction completed?

After lodging complaints with her bank, the police, and Jumia, Comfort around 10:13am the next day received an email from Jumia saying: "Kindly note that we are liaising with the police regarding your request. Kindly follow up with the police to get updated information about the issue."

Later Jumia emailed her again saying they were unable to find any document from the police regarding her case but urged her to send an acknowledgement letter of the area commander’s petition to them. She scanned the letter to Jumia but Comfort says she is still yet to receive a response from them and alleges that they're protecting the perpetrators of the crime by being complicit.

Why the story is really scary and being talked about is because people are wondering: how could perpetrators have successfully carried out multiple transactions on Jumia without any OTP from Comfort? If we cannot trust the OTP authentication system, then what does that mean for us? It's very scary to think that online thieves can now perform transactions by bypassing the OTP authentication system. It's also a big warning to each and every one of us to keep our sensitive information like cards, phones, and sensitive information very protected. Eyes are red on these streets! I beg you be careful.

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