Nigerian financial institution, Access bank, has refused to process a payment made through them by Makinde Inioluwa, a student of Integrated Sciences, Olabisi Onabanjo University, to her school’s account.
Inioluwa who spoke to Ogunwatch said that on the 26th of March, she attempted to pay her school fees on the school’s website using her Access bank card but noticed that although the payment page read “unsuccessful”, the money was debited from her account.
It is over 7 months now and neither has the money been refunded to Inioluwa nor has it been forwarded to the beneficiary of it (Olabisi Onabanjo University).
The money has left Inioluwa, OOU didn’t receive it, where is it?
According to her, she contacted the gateway company “Xpress payment solution” through which her university receives school fees, to inquire about the status of the payment and was told the payment was unsuccessful, thus yet to pass through their tunnel, stating that Access bank still withheld the money.
Checks by Ogunwatch also revealed that in a transaction with reference number “0982208500439751”, the sum of N90,988.00, which Inioluwa called her school fees rate, left her account and was categorized in the debit side of the ledger.
Customarily in OOU, when a student pays school fees, it is indicated on the school’s web portal whether their studentship was active or not, but as of the time of filing this report, Inioluwa’s shows “NOT PAID”. Meanwhile, further checks by Ogunwatch reveal that the payment deadline is November 21st – 5 days’ time, meaning that her studentship would be invalid if Access bank still refuses to process the payment before then.
Access bank ignores inquiries
On November 4th, when it seemed that the payment was unsuccessful and she was nearly at risk of losing her studentship, the 400-level student told our correspondent she went to the OOU branch of the bank to lodge a complaint. Thereafter, the payment was yet to be processed and by November 9th she sent a series of emails and messages to Access bank via email and social networks: Facebook and Twitter.
On one of the occasions, she wrote on Twitter tagging Access bank help account: “I made a payment for my school fees on the 26 of march and it hasn’t reflected on my portal yet though I thought it was the school portal issue and had to wait till when we resumed now went to my school ict to go and fix it they said it a failed transaction @accessbank_help.”
To her greatest surprise, she said, the bank failed to return any of her inquiries, so she had to annoyingly threaten them in an email written in pidgin language as follows: “For ur own life u no dey reply I hate using ur bank by d time I tag u on all social media u will know wats going on.”
Whereas, in a series of chat boxes in which Inioluwa lamented her plight to Access bank’s social media customer service account, which screenshots Ogunwatch obtained, the bank didn’t care to respond neither did they make any changes at the time of filling this report.
Meanwhile, all efforts to speak to Access bank customer’s care line has proven abortive.
