Fraud Rocks Kuda Bank As 400 level Student’s Customer Cry For Help

A 400-level medical student at the University of Abuja,Olisagbai Oviessu, fell victim to alleged fraudster who claimed to be a Kuda Bank customer care representative after he encountered an issue with his account and his bank failed to respond to his inquiries on time.

On May 15, someone sent him some money, but he did not receive a credit alert or an email notifying him that his account had been credited. He also tried to log in to his bank app numerous times but failed.

“I became curious. I needed to find out why the app failed to log me in and why I did not receive a credit alert. I posted a tweet and tagged Kuda Bank’s official handle. They responded at 7 am and said they were in my DM, but it was an auto response I got in my DM,” said Oviesu.

The bank’s customer care representatives stopped responding to Oviesu on Twitter. At 7:22 am, he received a message from someone who claimed to be a customer care representative on WhatsApp.

”Hello, This is Ore (Kuda). I sincerely apologise for the delayed response. Please take note of your ticket ID for this chat: #3417960. And I will be assisting you today,” the message read.

The fraudster also sent him a URL. For a second, Oviesu was hesitant. His hesitation drove him to send Kuda Bank another message on X, and he hoped they would respond.

“The website looked exactly like Kuda Bank’s web version,” he told FIJ.

He asked if the number that sent him a message on WhatsApp belonged to one of their representatives and if the URL that was sent was authentic, but there was no response from Kuda Bank until an hour later.

But it was too late. He had already clicked the link and input his email address, password and bank account PIN.

Oviesu became restless. He told FIJ that the money was for his school fees.

“I kept on trying because the money was reserved for my school fees. I wanted to keep it there pending when I would have enough money to pay it. It was recently increased. I went to bed around 11:30 that night because I was worried,” he said.

After changing his password, he was able to log in to the app the following morning, and that was when he discovered his account had been emptied. The sum of N127,000 he had reserved for his school fees had disappeared. He told FIJ that the money was sent to a Sportybet account.

The deduction

FIJ emailed Kuda Bank on Tuesday, and they asked this reporter to inform Oviesu to email them. Oviesu did, but Kuda Bank did not respond. This reporter also sent a follow-up email, but there was no response at press time.