Teejay's CORNER

Last year, I received a credit alert on my Opay account. It was one hundred and twenty-eight thousand naira (₦128,000). For some seconds, I stared at the description and couldn’t place the name of the sender to anyone I know.



I continued what I was doing with the thought that if it was a wrong credit, whoever sent it would call since it’s an Opay phone-number account. Less than ten minutes later, a call came through. Even before taking the call, I knew it had to do with the credit I had received earlier. It was a lady’s voice I heard. She greeted me and from her voice, I could sense how trembling she was.

She said she had mistakenly transferred one hundred and twenty-eight thousand naira (₦128,000) to my account, which was meant for someone else. I responded that I had seen it. She went on to say I should transfer the money back to her. I asked, “Why would you make such a mistake?” She said it was a number error from the account.

 I needed to be sure she wasn’t lying, so I requested the number she had wanted to send the money to. She forwarded it and it happened to be a number similar to mine except for one digit. While mine is 4, the actual recipient was 7. She had mistakenly typed 4.

Even at that, I asked, “Didn’t you cross-check the name before processing?” She said she couldn’t really explain how she made such a mistake. I told her to forward her account details to me, which she did. I checked the name and it corresponded with the one that had credited me earlier. So I transferred the money back to her. Before I did the transfer, she told me to keep ₦5,000 and send ₦123,000.
I saw that as a kind of bargaining chip in a situation where you feel the wrong recipient wouldn’t comply. When sending, I sent everything to her.

She called again to thank me and I told her to be very careful. She might not be lucky with some other person. What if the mobile number I used for my Opay setup isn’t available or reachable? It’s interesting to know that some people don’t actually use the mobile number from their account registration as their main line. So one needs to be careful in such situations.

Early this year, when I narrated this story to a young man who's a skilled worker, he told me how he was wrongly credited ₦3 million few years ago. Immediately, he transferred out ₦2 million before the bank could block and reverse it. The bank contacted him few days later
He went to the bank and admitted receiving the money, but claimed he had used part of it ₦2 million which he withdrew to pay for materials for his house project. The bank couldn’t detain him or press charges. Probably because he was an active customer. They reached an agreement on a repayment plan suggested by him. He would pay ₦100,000 monthly into his account, which was set on automatic debit. All he did was present a surety.

Eventually, he paid it off. He set ₦1 million aside for monthly repayment, while he used the other ₦1 million for personal needs. From jobs he was doing, he was able to keep to the deal. There was no interest attached. Shortly after full repayment, the bank presented a loan offer to him, which he told me he declined.

I’ve heard and read reports of people switching off their lines when things like this occur, just to keep other people’s money. That’s wrong in every sense and a criminal act that should be treated as such and penalized.
Never rush money transactions. Some people never recover money sent to the wrong account.