The NGN10,000,000.00 (Ten Million Naira) Bank Customer Complaint

In a Nigerian Commercial Bank, more than about ten years ago, a customer went to the banking hall to make a withdrawal from her savings account.

Back in the days bank customers had Passbooks that was updated after every transaction. She expectedly had a credit balance of NGN10million. Before the advent of computerized banking with several mobile banking telephone applications now, back then, the customer had no way of knowing their credit balance other than the entry in the passbook and any update of the passbook would wait until the customer came to the bank to make subsequent transactions. The customer would fill out a withdrawal slip, pass it across the counter with the passbook and the teller would verify all that needs verifying in the account, thereafter pay out to the customer the amount on the withdrawal slip, if all the verifications went well.

This was what this lady customer was expecting. But, to her uttermost shock and dismay, the teller officer told her that she had fully withdrawn her NGN10million over a period of three years and that her account was in the red! The lady fainted on the floor of the banking hall and needed to be revived. Some first aid was administered and after what seemed like eternity, the lady came around and was screaming and shouting uncontrollably demanding for her money!!! When she had calmed down a little bit and was making some sense, she brought out her international passport to show that she had been abroad for over 10 years and could not have made any withdrawals from her account. She argued that her passbook was with her and the last entry there was over ten (10) years ago indicating a credit balance of NGN10,000,000.00!? She stated further that she was arrested, tried and she served a jail term of nearly ten COMPANIES LEAVE A LOT OF MONEY ON THE TABLE BY AVOIDING CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS. •

Customers’ complaint is the best feedback channel organizations can have.

• Customers may commend customer’ service or report poor services.
• Organizations do not want poor services delivery reports…. years and now she was repatriated back to Nigeria and all she had to start life over was the NGN10million she had left in her account and now, the bank was telling her she had withdrawn all her money, whereas she was not in the country! The lady screamed some more and broke down sobbing to the embarrassment of the bank officers and other customers who were perplexed at the tale of the customer.
• The officers at the banking hall did not know what to do, other than to maintain their front and bold face, that from their records, the lady had withdrawn all her NGN10million. On the face value, it was the customer’s word against the bank officers and when it seemed there was no going to be a reasonable consideration of what the lady was saying, she stormed out of the banking hall and no one knew what her next line of action was going to be.
• This is where there is always a marked distinction and difference between a Customers’ Cares Officer and a Customers’ Ombudsman. That moment of thinking out of the box and departing from playing by the books, is the distinction between the two. Since the banking practice was for every customer transaction to be recorded in the passbook, how was it possible to withdraw NGN10,000,000.00 from the customer’s account over three (3) years period, without any entry into the passbook, other than the credit balance of NGN10million reflecting as the last entry into the account? Could it be possible that the customer’s identity was cloned or stolen? The Customers’ Care Officer(s) always play by the book and never would want to indict her organization.
• The Customers’ Care Officer(s) would always want to rise up to the defense of the organization and assume this is always the right thing to do. This always aggravates the situation and as said earlier pours more gasoline into the fire.
• The Customers’ Care Officer always assumes, if she admitted liability or that the customer is right, she may be fired or she may cost the organization some compensation to the customer and she is not trained to commit the organization in this regard. The Customers’ Cares Office is not just trained to handle customers’ complaints for this reason, but beyond that, they do not have the mandate to commit the organization by admitting any guilt, responsivity, or liability. This explains why even in very glaring situations that anyone could see through, the Customers’ Care Officer argues, puts up needless defense and ends up ruining an opportunity to resolve a complaint. This is because complaint resolution is not the job function of the Customers’ Cares Officer.
• The customer must have sought some counsel from friends and family members, and she may have been told the fastest and cheapest way to recover her money from the bank, was to go to the press.
• The customer recounted to the press that she was out of Nigeria for over ten years for a crime she committed abroad for which she was tried, convicted and jailed. She affirmed that she did time for ten years and had just been deported back to Nigeria. She argued and made her case to the press by asking a rhetorical question to the effect that it was not possible for her to have operated her account from jail without any withdrawal entries into the passbook by the bank. She wondered how it was possible to have withdrawn her money “inabsentia”!? This made bold headlines and front page in the media the next day and the press hued and cried over how the bank was trying to swindle a poor customer who had just served a jail term of her funds by alluding to the fact that she had withdrawn her money whereas she was in jail at the time! So, what happened to the customer’s NGN10million? Where was the money? Who withdraw the customer’s money, if she was not the one that withdrew the money? What were the bank records saying about these transactions? Was the bank hiding anything? Was the bank complicit in anyway?
• … to be continued… look out for part 2 Next week Monday.

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