By Dipo Olowookere
Monday, February 5, 2018, has been fixed for ruling on the case brought against Diamond Bank Plc by one of its customers, Mr Olajide Friday.
The plaintiff, a car dealer, accused the bank of sending a fake credit alert of N2.5 million to him, value of a vehicle he sold to a customer.
Counsel to the auto dealer, Mr Cyril Nwaogu, informed Justice Angela Otaluka of the FCT High Court, Lugbe, that his client, three days after the said transaction, approached the bank to withdraw the money only to be told that the amount was not in his account.
He said Mr Friday, who had already released the car to the buyer, though devastated, wrote severally to Diamond Bank, which allegedly promised to look into the matter.
However, he lamented that the bank, after its internal investigation, failed to credit his account with the amount, which forced him to institute a suit against the lender.
“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,” Mr Friday said.
According to him, when he received the alert, he never questioned its authenticity as it was the usual way he received alerts from the bank, and had to release the car the moment he got the SMS alert from Diamond bank.
The car dealer blamed Diamond Bank for such anomaly, adding that receiving SMS alert was the only medium he could know that payment had been made.
His counsel, while corroborating his claims, said, “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.”
But counsel to Diamond bank, Mr Austin Uwanna, 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.
Mr 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.
The defence counsel said that the plaintiff went to the bank and did not see any alert, adding that the bank could not be said to be culpable in such matter.
After listening to both counsels, Justice Angela Otaluka reserved judgment till Monday, February 5, 2018.
