A customer of United Bank for Africa PLC Mr. Yakubu Adejo, has sued the bank over alleged illegal and excess charges to the tune of N212,492.31 from 2014 to 2020 from his current account: 1018796013, domiciled in its Jos Main branch office.
In the suit marked No PLD/J248/2021 and filed before the High Court of Plateau State, Jos the claimant is seeking an order directing the defendant to credit his account number: 1018796013 with the sum of N212,492.31 illegal charges from the said account without his knowledge or authorization.
The claimant is also seeking an order directing the defendant to pay 21 per cent in per month in the sum of N44,623.39 accrued from the excess charges of the sum of N212, 492.31 on the current account No: 1018796013 from March, 2014 to 2020 until judgement is delivered in the suit.
Also, the claimant is seeking an order directing the defendant to pay N50 million as general damages against the defendant for acts of fraudulent misrepresentations, illegal withdrawals, charges, breach of contract of banker-customer relationship and inconveniences caused the claimant.
In his statement on oath filed before the court, Adejo stated that sometimes in 2012, he opened a current account at the defendant’s main Bank branch, Jos and operated the account until 2020 when he discovered that his personal account were experiencing some excess illegal charges from the defendant.
He said particularly on the last stroke was in February, 2020 when the defendant illegally withrews inter alia, the sum of N10,574.08 within one month on what the bank claimed to be for current account maintenance charges without any debit advice nor prior authorisation of the claimant.
The claimant also stated that as result he stopped utilising the said account pending thorough investigation into the account and approached the branch manager of the defendant as well as his account officer at its Jos Main Branch and informed them of the illegal withdrawals, but no reasonable explanation was given to him about what went wrong with the said account.
The claimant said he has suffered a great deal of inconvenience because of the action of the defendant of illegally excess charges from the said account without his knowledge or authorization.
He is therefore seeking for a declaration that the various removals or debits from his current account without his consent are unlawful.
It would be recalled that the United Bank For Africa PLC Jos Branch had on March, 2021 admitted to have inadvertently charged a customer Global Photo cot of N3/mile instead of N2/mile from march 2014 to December 2015 and the customer was charged in excess of N72,643.03 and was later refunded by the bank upon complaints.
