So my sister called me up early this morning sounding hysterical. A total of about ₦59,000 had been deducted from her Diamond Bank account through the night beginning from around 11pm and the last debit was around 5am this morning all with the description "UBERV". She'd put her phone on silent and missed the alerts until this morning.
One look at the alert she sent me, the timing of the withdrawals, the purpose and the manner - they started with a ₦400 credit then debit, a credit, and then the floodgates were open with about 9 debit alerts in all - and I knew it was done by someone that had carefully mapped out what to do. My sister leaves in Benin, doesn't indulge in Internet / online banking etc and is very damn careful with her card. I've questioned her about replying those fraudulent CBN messages but she knows far too much to fall for that. How this was done remains a mystery to everyone.
Diamond Bank when contacted this morning already threw their hands in the air - nothing they can do about it. UBER has no customer care phone number and I've tried to reach out to them via Twitter without response. And all this leaves me wondering just about how helpless one can get over perhaps no fault of theirs. What if these guys chose to empty her entire account? It's not just about the vulnerability to online fraud but just how helpless oone can be in the face of it. No one seems to be perturbed. The attitude seems to be more like "ehyah somebody just hammer" - a tacit acceptance.
The way she's been calling, wailing and crying, like she's lost an arm, I know this'll probably end with me having to pay her back but it'll probably be worth it to explore other resolution channels. So does anyone have any ideas?