₦airaland Forum

steppin:
@Op,
That's for a current account not savings.
If you leave a current account dormant, there are bound to be charges in some banks.

dats rite, its nt application to savings acct.

steppin:
@Op,
That's for a current account not savings.
If you leave a current account dormant, there are bound to be charges in some banks.

I left #1500 in my savings acct in ecobank since last yr. its now remaining #700 nd d acct is dormat. dey are still sending deductions to me.

Cursed be unto Ecobank, if they don't stop their frudulent act, they will soon become history. It is not only on current acct, they charge on savings acct too, each month l get closing balance from them, its always less #155. They are cursed. l will close d acct ASAP

ladygudhead:
pls o.was dat ur dormant Acc with Eko a savings or current Acc?

Savings

Tokotaya:
If you have a dormant bank account in Nigeria, you could be on CBN’s debtors’ list. Let me recast that, if you have a dormant account in Ecobank, you may already be a debtor, without knowing it. Your name may have been listed as having bad credit on the Credit Risk Management Bureau (CRMB)’s database with CBN. It’s not a demarketing attempt. It is purely my experience that others can learn from.

I had a current account in Ecobank around 2011. My ex-employer moved our salaries there based on a nice presentation made by the Branch Manager of the Bank at the time. However, the promises made were not met, so the salary account was moved elsewhere and we all thought it ended there.

More than three years later, I had left the company and was processing a loan with another bank. Near the completion of the deal, they called to tell me I was owing Ecobank. I was advised to sort it out with them before any progress could be made. I didn’t take any loan. The account didn’t have an overdraft facility. It was a basic current account from which you could never withdraw above your available balance at any point in time. How could I owe on the account?

I called their customer care and the lady insisted I must have taken a loan. I insisted I did not, and tried to convince her to look into the account to see what could have happened. She rudely cut the call!

I made a series of other calls and was linked to their Oke Afa, Isolo Branch where the account resided and was able to establish that it was my dormant account there that ran into negative. Ecobank made some routine charges on the account and when they depleted what was there, they made negative deduction of N119 and the negative started accumulating interest that had amounted to about N2,500 by late last year when I applied for a loan.

What manner of a bank would make deductions from a dormant account? I went to the bank and confronted them. An official explained that an account going dormant does not mean that charges could not be made on it. He said a man can be sleeping, but his bodily functions work nonetheless.

I paid off the money and obtained a letter of Non-indebtedness and took it to my new bank before they could process my loan. The great worry: what if I had not applied for a loan at another bank? How would I have known? Many decades later, may be as a pensioner, one may now apply for something and they will tell you there’s a debt of a couple of millions of naira you need to clear.

I’ve commenced the process of closing the account with Ecobank. Other dormant accounts I have are going too, even though some of the other banks are arguing that their own processes are different from Ecobank’s. They argue that typically, your dormant account holds the last balance there till you reactivate it. One said if at all any customer’s account goes into red, his bank had a standard procedure to call up the customer by phone to alert him. No one called me from Ecobank.

How much was N119 that Ecobank would go ahead to list me as having a non-performing loan instead of calling me to clear it. The totality of my experience with Ecobank has been horrible to say the least. To even collect the Letter of Non-Indebtedness was a war. It took nearly 3 weeks of constant harassment to get it ready and on the day I was to pick it up, I spent three and a half hours in their banking hall.
So folks, check up on all your current dormant accounts, especially those with Ecobank.

To add to your insightful information, I think that the very reason your account ran negative and accumulated interest is due to the fact that it is a current account. Current accounts are constantly attracting charges daily, or weekly. For savings account, it is different. Had it been a savings account, there is every possibility that the account would not have entered negative status because savings account are supposed to yield interest on whatever amount, no matter how little, left in the account. Some banks usually have a minimum account balance for savings accounts beyond which you cannot withdraw money. Should one withdraw all their money but the minimum, say, N500, from a savings account and leave it dormant, over the course of several months or years, the account would actually yield interests on that N500 left.

Pavore9:
'He said a man can be sleeping, but his bodily functions work nonetheless'.

So that is the area that captured your attention abi? correct him na

I used to ve an account with bank phb,before the change of account no. and bank merger,do I still ve to apply for closure?

ehisdan:
Savings

thanks

DBlackCeazer:
I used to ve an account with bank phb,before the change of account no. and bank merger,do I still ve to apply for closure?

Yes

bigfrancis21:
To add to your insightful information, I think that the very reason your account ran negative and accumulated interest is due to the fact that it is a current account. Current accounts are constantly attracting charges daily, or weekly. For savings account, it is different. Had it been a savings account, there is every possibility that the account would not have entered negative status because savings account are supposed to yield interest on whatever amount, no matter how little, left in the account. Some banks usually have a minimum account balance for savings accounts beyond which you cannot withdraw money. Should one withdraw all their money but the minimum, say, N500, from a savings account and leave it dormant, over the course of several months or years, the account would actually yield interests on that N500 left.

You might be wrong! I just received my e-statement of my savings account and you cannot believe the debits that Ecobank is passing into my account. I had to check the statement after the Op post!

I saw charges like

5 Sms Charges for July 2015 (There has not been any transaction in the account for months, so what is the 5 SMS for?)

ACCESS FEE ACCESS FEE - NGN 100.00 (ACCESS TO WHAT?)

VALUE ADDED TAX VALUE ADDED TAX (Do customers pay tax without income, as there was no interest credit to my savings account)

amNIGERIA:
You might be wrong! I just received my e-statement of my savings account and you cannot believe the debits that Ecobank is passing into my account. I had to check the statement after the Op post!

I saw charges like

5 Sms Charges for July 2015 (There has not been any transaction in the account for months, so what is the 5 SMS for?)

ACCESS FEE ACCESS FEE - NGN 100.00 (ACCESS TO WHAT?)

VALUE ADDED TAX VALUE ADDED TAX (Do customers pay tax without income, as there was no interest credit to my savings account)

So can we safely assume that this is an issue of Ecobank specifically?

noxide:
Yes

sorry to bother you bro,do I just walk into keystone(former phb) and ask for acc. Closure?

IamforGod:
They should av given me prior notice.
They blocked my account a day before the ileya I was stranded for four to five days.
When I initially went to open the account why didn't they ask me for my national i.d card? Why is it wen I paid in so much money that they asked for it.

Pls dnt try and defend them they are wrong in every way.

I'm not taking sides. Just stating the facts. What is the name of the account? If you use an account where you put 5k and below frequently and one day, #5m hits it, you'll have to regularise tue account cos it's an
unusual transaction. It's just the rules I'm stating, not taking sides.

DBlackCeazer:
sorry to bother you bro,do I just walk into keystone(former phb) and ask for acc. Closure?

Ask the customer care officer what is required to close your account. The process differs across banks

Oceanic cum Ecobank is wack. They are the most miserable amoungst em all banks

Tokotaya:
If you have a dormant bank account in Nigeria, you could be on CBN’s debtors’ list. Let me recast that, if you have a dormant account in Ecobank, you may already be a debtor, without knowing it. Your name may have been listed as having bad credit on the Credit Risk Management Bureau (CRMB)’s database with CBN. It’s not a demarketing attempt. It is purely my experience that others can learn from.

I had a current account in Ecobank around 2011. My ex-employer moved our salaries there based on a nice presentation made by the Branch Manager of the Bank at the time. However, the promises made were not met, so the salary account was moved elsewhere and we all thought it ended there.

More than three years later, I had left the company and was processing a loan with another bank. Near the completion of the deal, they called to tell me I was owing Ecobank. I was advised to sort it out with them before any progress could be made. I didn’t take any loan. The account didn’t have an overdraft facility. It was a basic current account from which you could never withdraw above your available balance at any point in time. How could I owe on the account?

I called their customer care and the lady insisted I must have taken a loan. I insisted I did not, and tried to convince her to look into the account to see what could have happened. She rudely cut the call!

I made a series of other calls and was linked to their Oke Afa, Isolo Branch where the account resided and was able to establish that it was my dormant account there that ran into negative. Ecobank made some routine charges on the account and when they depleted what was there, they made negative deduction of N119 and the negative started accumulating interest that had amounted to about N2,500 by late last year when I applied for a loan.

What manner of a bank would make deductions from a dormant account? I went to the bank and confronted them. An official explained that an account going dormant does not mean that charges could not be made on it. He said a man can be sleeping, but his bodily functions work nonetheless.

I paid off the money and obtained a letter of Non-indebtedness and took it to my new bank before they could process my loan. The great worry: what if I had not applied for a loan at another bank? How would I have known? Many decades later, may be as a pensioner, one may now apply for something and they will tell you there’s a debt of a couple of millions of naira you need to clear.

I’ve commenced the process of closing the account with Ecobank. Other dormant accounts I have are going too, even though some of the other banks are arguing that their own processes are different from Ecobank’s. They argue that typically, your dormant account holds the last balance there till you reactivate it. One said if at all any customer’s account goes into red, his bank had a standard procedure to call up the customer by phone to alert him. No one called me from Ecobank.

How much was N119 that Ecobank would go ahead to list me as having a non-performing loan instead of calling me to clear it. The totality of my experience with Ecobank has been horrible to say the least. To even collect the Letter of Non-Indebtedness was a war. It took nearly 3 weeks of constant harassment to get it ready and on the day I was to pick it up, I spent three and a half hours in their banking hall.
So folks, check up on all your current dormant accounts, especially those with Ecobank.

Thank God i do not operate that bank. I have always detested that bank and sending my siblings money through Ecobank has always been a terrible experience for me. I had to force my sister and brother to close their account there and use another bank. I am not trying to blacklist them, but their customer care's attitude to customers is really nothing to write home about. Tufia is their new name in my dictionary.

I see many bank customers in Nigeria complaining about all these charges from the their banks. Banks are out there to make money from different sources as mentioned in the threads. It is now left for individual customers to choose a good bank that will not have hidden charges. But due to the fact that all these banks have hidden charges on both current and savings account, the the question now is - where do I keep my money

Even with the CBN directive on the phased cancellation of Cost of Transaction (CoT) by banks, trust Nigeria banks that they will come up with some kind of other charges. I read recently in two Nigerian online newspaper about these charges, the papers are:
1. dailyindependentnig.com/2015/07/banking-nigerians-groan-cot-hidden-charges/; and
2. businessnews.com.ng/2015/06/09/customers-seek-end-to-excessive-bank-charges/.

These are resent news condemning the charges but will the bank stop charging? I also have been a victim of these charges and I have seen that there is nothing the CBN can really do because these banks too will claim to have the right to charge customers in other for them to be in business.

All well said by us all that have contributed to the thread. The only solution to the problem of bank charges that I have seen is to use a Non-bank Prepaid Card. With the prepaid card from skoypay, the company nor the bank will card the customer NO hidden fees and NO COT.

In fact, the only solution to all these charges is for customers to be using a Prepaid Card.

A Prepaid card have all the benefits (and even more) of a debit card and and the good thing about it is that it is not link to your current or savings account.

With a prepaid card, you have the following benefits:

1. Security
2. No hidden charge
3. Rewards on your spending
4. Use a your salary account from your employer
5. Receive money or make payment
6. Use at ATM, POS and online
7. Have a second card for family
8. No annual fee. And many more.

Crooked banks are the number 2 problem of Nigeria,apart from crooked politicians as number 1

I can't even remember how many banks I have dormant accounts with, might have about five just between zenith and FBN.

Few years ago, I had N500 in my FBN current account. I laughed every month as they deducted SMS charge, waiting to see what would happen when the N500 runs out. Now the account is on -N251. Guess I was laughing at my ignorance all this while.

egopersonified:
I can't even remember how many banks I have dormant accounts with, might have about five just between zenith and FBN.

Few years ago, I had N500 in my FBN current account. I laughed every month as they deducted SMS charge, waiting to see what would happen when the N500 runs out. Now the account is on -N251. Guess I was laughing at my ignorance all this while.

Lol, I have a dormant savings account with GTB, they do send me birthday messages sometimes, but for deduction in my account? I think never! I withdrew everything I think. I don't know if the account is on negative now or not.

steppin:
@Op,
That's for a current account not savings.
If you leave a current account dormant, there are bound to be charges in some banks.

I hope GTBank is not one of such banks?

I have a very perfectly dormant current account with GTBank.

juliebest:
This should be on the front-page so a lot of people will be aware.
Na wa o.

YOU WERE THE FIRST TO VOTE THIS POST BE ON FRONT-PAGE, YET FOR THE GOOD CAMPAIGN AND ATTENTION TO ENLIGHTEN PEOPLE, NO SINGLE LIKE OR APPRECIATION GIVEN TO YOUR COMMENT. You did well bae

I've made up my mind to close my Ecobank account. They've become crap since the merger with Oceanic bank

Been humiliated several times at their bank, most recent was when I went to pick up my ATM card. The CC officer refused to give me because of irregular signature. She even refused to accept my BVN number!

I told her if my signature is irregular, but the profile on my BVN matches the account, why not use the biometrics of the BVN to grant me access to the account. The officer was on zombie mode and kept insisting my signature was irregular.

Won't bore you with details; at the end of the day I spent 2hrs+, felt humiliated and left without my ATM card. I'm truly disappointed with Ecobank!

UPDATE:
For those of us willing to close our Ecobank accounts. You will need

a.) A letter addressed to the the branch manager requesting to close the account

b.) You have to return anything given to you by the bank e.g. ATM card, cheque books, withdrawal slip.

C.) In the absence of b.) You will need a court affidavit to stand-in for any of the above

d.) About 3 weeks of patience. (They won't be in a hurry to close your account)

N/B: Visit your domiciliary branch to process your case and avoid stories that touch (no network, system is down, the printer has not been working since last week, our manager's dog has a fever )

I agree with you baba, very rude customer service.

bluefilm:
I hope GTBank is not one of such banks?

I have a very perfectly dormant current account with GTBank.

Go to gtb and inquire, all this banks nowadays are hungry, since the inception of online banks

stelaar:
I stopped running a Diamond Bank Saving account (High interest deposit account aka HIDA) for over two years, got to the bank this Year only to be informed that going below N5000 attracts a monthly charge of 150 and as such I owe the Bank N150 X 28 Months.

Account was on Negatived as such as soon as Money got in, N4200 was deducted with the speed of light.
Funny enough Available Balance shows what's left and my Book balance still shows my deposit plus the N4200

It's now 300 per month.

Dpcoupler:
Go to gtb and inquire, all this banks nowadays are hungry, since the inception of online banks

How is online banking affecting them?

bluefilm:
How is online banking affecting them?

Good afternoon

Do eco bank still force its customers to have a minimum of 1k in any savings account.... Please

Because I'm intending to remove my entire money from that account