Customer drags Diamond Bank to court over N2.5m fraud

One Olajide Friday, a customer with Diamond Bank has dragged the Bank to an Abuja High Court, Lugbe over a N2.5m fake credit alert allegedly received by him from Diamond Bank arising from a car transaction deal.

Mr. Cyril Nwaogu, the Counsel to Friday, while closing his case urged the court to ask Diamond Bank to restore the amount to his client and other damages caused.

According to him, “my client got an alert from a customer that the sum of N2.5 million has been credited to the plaintiff and he released the car, but on getting to the bank we discovered that the money was not credited to his account.

” We wrote to Diamond bank severally, but the bank promised to revert to us their findings, but we did not hear from it again, that was why we came to court.”

According to Friday, “I had a N2.5 million transaction with my client and he called me that he has paid the money into my account, which I received a credit alert on the usual platform from the bank.”

He said he never questioned the veracity of the alert because he had no reason, as it was the usual way he received alert from the bank.

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He said he had to release the car the moment he got the SMS alert from Diamond bank, adding that after three days, he went to the bank to claim his money and discovered that the money was not credited.

He blamed the bank for such anomaly, adding that receiving SMS alert was the only medium he could know that payment had been made.

Mr. Austin Uwanna, the Counsel to Diamond bank, told the court that his client would be applying for N500, 000 damages from the plaintiff. He said that the suit was baseless and unfounded because Diamond bank was not a party to the transaction.

Uwanna said that the plaintiff agreed with his customer that he would receive alert from the transaction, stressing that diamond bank was not a party to such agreement.

Justice Angela Otaluka of the FCT High Court, Lugbe, has however reserved judgment till Feb. 5.