Emmanuel Ajiboye, a Lagos resident, has narrated how Globus Bank failed to resolve an account-related error preventing a refund of his £3,500 from a United Kingdom-based university.
Ajiboye was to travel to the UK to study for a master’s degree in 2022, but his application for a visa fell through. However, he had paid part of his tuition to the University of Sunderland via Globus Bank.
Ajiboye then requested the university to refund his deposit because of his inability to acquire a visa and the university’s subsequent decision to withdraw his admission.
He told FIJ that he had paid £7,000 via two sources: a friend’s Mastercard and Globus’ e-form portal.
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“I had to request the university to refund my deposit of £7,000. Half of this money [£3,500] was paid through Globus Bank Limited on October 13, 2022, and the second half [£3,500] through a friend’s Mastercard,” Ajiboye told FIJ.
While the school has refunded half of the money sent via the said Mastercard, its attempts to refund the other half paid through the bank have been fruitless. The school kept getting an “account format invalid” error response each time it tried sending the money.
“I have written letters to the institution in view of the visa refusal with the corresponding replies. The university has made three unsuccessful attempts to refund due to the ‘account number format is invalid’ response,” he said.
“Three attempts were made on May 24, 2023; July 11, 2023; and September 26, 2023, and the school has said that it will not make any attempt again until the bank sends a message resolving the issue.
“I wrote to the general manager and the manager of the bank’s Allen Avenue, Lagos, branch in August 2023. Neither of them replied to my email. A hard copy of the complaint letter I submitted personally was never replied to.”
Sometime in 2023, Ajiboye’s wife involved a lawyer, with whom she went to the headquarters of Globus Bank, and then the bank assigned an official to resolve the complaint.
“The university is saying they will not be able to refund until the proper account format details are received from Globus Bank. Disappointedly, the bank has refused to say anything after this message, and the official in charge has equally refused to talk to me.”
According to Ajiboye, a banker by the name of Fatolu Mutiu has a hand in the problem. He stated that it took the intervention of the said lawyer for Mutiu to refund the N250,000 extorted from him when he was making the payment in 2022.
“It should be noted that the bank collected both official and non-official charges for the transaction. One Fatolu Mutiu is the brain behind this. He was forced to return non-official amount of N250,000 as a result of the lawyer’s intervention,” said Ajiboye.
“This money has made me and my family face life in a hard way. We have a series of unpaid bills, with creditors knocking at my door at unwarranted times.”
With respect to the extortion by Mutiu, the bank told FIJ in an email on Wednesday that it did not condone such an act by its officials. “Please be informed that we do not have preview to the information provided, as Globus Bank does not condone bribery in providing services,” said Mercy, a representative of the bank.
Although Ajiboye had engaged the bank at different times to resolve the complaint, Mercy requested him to “communicate with our customer to engage us for further assistance”.
