Chain link of bank fraud started from washing bay

Apr 01, 2011

THIS is in response to a letter in Saturday Vision of March 26 of a man whose money was stolen by a bank teller through an ATM.

THIS is in response to a letter in Saturday Vision of March 26 of a man whose money was stolen by a bank teller through an ATM.

Bank theft/fraud has gained momentum in Uganda, to a point where the thieving chain starts with the bank middle manager conniving with tellers to steal from customers.

In our case, the chain started with an undelivered cheque, that was stolen at a washing bay.

The thief took the cheque to his partners in the bank and our balance and contact details were checked.

The amount on the cheque was inflated by adding three zeros (after checking the balance on the account). The cheque was then deposited.

The bank officials then activated a phone number on our bank records that they had confirmed
was out of use for a year and used it to call themselves twice to authorise the payment of the cheque.

The second signature had been forged from the original signature found on the cheque and the money was paid out to an account in the bank. The money was withdrawn in three days which must require a branch manager’s permission.

The bank then feigned ignorance and kept telling us that they had called as per bank regulations, and that we had authorised payment.
We presented our passport stamps showing we were out of the country, at the time they called to ask for authorisation of payment.

Everything
about the cheque screamed forgery but the bank authorised payment into an internal account belonging to a ‘customer’ who is difficult to trace. After a month of investigations, there was no report on the theft.

Janet Gaweera

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});