Outrageous bank charges in my account, this is unacceptable! It is not often that I make a post because I’m angry. But this post, Outrageous bank charges was inspired by the activities of my banker that I just discovered this morning. I wasn’t planning to make any post today, but I got angry enough to hit my computer keyboard, because I’m definitely going to reclaim those bank charges or look for a better banker. Here is the story and I will be glad to read your opinion.
I got a cheque from a foreign firm who places adverts on this website (I do make money online you know). The cheque was for $125. Small amount I know, but that’s what makes the big bucks when it comes from different streams. Well, with excitement, I deposited the cheque in my domiciliary USD account with my banker, one of the famous Nigerian Banks (some are no longer famous, if you care to know why, read this post, .
The cheque was credited into the account and I went home smiling that in another 21days (well, from experience that is what it takes before a foreign cheque gets cleared into a Nigerian domiciliary account), I will have access to the fund. However, I was shocked to discover when checking my account online the following day that the figure credited into my bank account has been reversed. A new figure for $100 was now credited! That was so confusing. I’ve never heard of such before. What manner of accounting is that? At least the cheque figure should be credited and then whatever charges the bank wants to make can now be debited into the account with explanation. Well, that wasn’t the case.
Careless me, I forgot to take the issue up (I guess I was too busy chasing more money online). I forgot all about the transaction until this morning when I discovered that I have been charged another $10.50 for the same cheque (21days is accomplished, the cheque from the foreign firm has cleared). Also, another $20 was charged as handling fees for sending the cheque from Nigeria to the foreign firms banker! For crying out loud, it is just a piece of payer, almost weightless! Isn’t this courier charge outrageous!
Anaylsis of The Outrageous Bank Charges
A quick analysis of all the charges got me angry. First, $25 charged for unknown reason, another $10.5 charged for unknown reason and finally $20 charged as handling fees. That means a total charges of $55.5 out of $125! That is a whooping 44% of the cheque value. So, while I labor tirelessly trying to make money online legitimately, my banker is sitting in the comfort of his office and taking out 44% of the proceed without my authorization. And nobody deemed it necessary to offer some explanation on why my internet business proceed should be divided between me and my banker in a manner I consider unfair.
My Reaction To the Bank Charges
If they had taking 10% or 20% of the proceed, maybe I would have been too busy to notice, but they took 44%. Of course, that was too much for me to forget. I paused my online business activity and made a franctic call to my account officer, ready to express my grievance. Unfortunately, he was not available to pick the call. That did not disuade me from making more effort, 44% of my earning can’t just end-up in the banker’s pocket without me putting up a fight. I quickly drafted an email and fired same with a note of urgency to the customer care service of my bank. It has been over 30 minutes since then, but there has been no respond. My account officer called back and I narrated the situation, he too promised to look into it, but there has been no response till now.
Nigerian Entrepreneurs Doing Business Online Please Help
Am I using a wrong bank?
Is this what other Nigerian Entrepreneurs doing businesses with foreign firms go through?
Was it stupid to have agreed that the foreign firm issue a cheque in settlement of the service I rendered?
What are the best steps to take when disputing bank charges?
Can bank charges be reclaim in Nigeria? I know it is possible elsewhere.
I need answer to this because it was not a one time deal. Another payment will be due soon. (I’m still making money online legitimately though I live in Nigeria!) The foreign firm does not use AlertPay, PayPal, is yet to remove Nigerians from her blacklist. So, what other options do you suggest for receiving money from this online business client?
This is not the first time am dealing with a foreign cheque. I’ve not really been careful to determine if the bank charges was fair or not. However, this particular incidence is a good starting point. I may not have noticed the outrageous bank charges if the cheque was for a five digit figure! I need your opinion on this, especially naija online entrepreneurs. Are you experiencing outrageous bank charges?
Hi, nice of you to visit again. I do hope you got some useful information. If you have not done so yet, I encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feed. That way you will not miss any update. Kindly share your feelings in the comment section. Cheers!
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For sure those bank charges are truly outrageous. I think Nigerians need to speak out more.
Well, I got a response from them yesterday. They claimed that the first $25 dollars was deducted by their correspondence bank. The $10.5 is their own charge, while the $20 is for courier services. So, there is not going to be any reimbursement.
Since I can’t reclaim the excess bank charges, I guess the only option I have left is to look for another Nigerian bank that is more friendly to small scale business owners.
I’m thoroughly disappointed in the attitude of some Nigerian banks towards small scale businesses. Instead of lending a helping hand for such small business to grow, they make life much more difficult.
Isn’t it funny that my banker pay interest on foreign deposit kept by big businesses, but here they are telling me stories on why they must take 44% of my proceed from a small business deal. They have shown that indeed they are “SME friendly“.
I think you should look for another bank or try another branch when next you want to pay your cheque. Perhaps some bad eggs at that bank are the ones shortchanging you. Using internet banking would also be useful.
@Felix
Thanks for the suggestion. Which bank do you use for your online money making businesses? I happen to know that you’re one of Nigerian infopreneur.
WOW! This is outrageous! I have never heard of such bank charges. I mean, here there can be some annoying fees an such but basically making a check disappear through charges that’s ridiculous!
That is just crazy! omg. i would be screaming.
Hope you find a way around this highway robbery!
@Diva
Thanks for visiting. Since the bank is not willing to reverse the excess bank charges, it means I have to look for another banker who is small business friendly. This one is definitely not good for a small business. Often, online business earns advert income in 3digits. Loosing a chunk of it via outrageous bank charges is simply not funny. I ignored such in time past, but I won’t anymore.
Sorry for the loss, or what can I say? As far back as 1991-93 one could ‘sell’ foreign cheques to exchange people who will sell to traders going overseas for business. The banks in Nigeria have vowed to be both irresponsible and non-responsive to non-big bag customers like you and me.
Why don’t you explore this with your neighborhood Sabo/Mallam to see whether that will work. Even if they buy it at a lower exchange rate, it will never be 44% less.
I know that one day, we will have solutions that will avoid those greedy banks.
Another option you can explore is to talk with your advertiser about opening a paypal account and using it.
Nigeria na waa.
NaijaEcash, I feel for you man. It is getting worse and worse. I just sent my bank written notice to send me a complete and accurate itemization of my mortgage charges which on a NEG-Amortization loan (from rip-off broker) cost me 80,000 dollars in three years added to my mortgage. 40% of those charges are “made up” and just thrown into the pile. Greed!!!! My credit is now shot, equity drops and its all their own doing!!!! And, all the foreclosures in this country is despicable. Guess what? Everyone here is wondering why the banks wouldn’t rather reach an agreement instead of a forclosure?? Ya know why Banks are so anxious to do a “shortsale”???? Because our own government BAILS THEM OUT ON THEIR LOSSES……instead of helping us. Ahhh that felt good!! By the way INDYMAC BANK / ONEWESTBANK stay away from!!!! JA
I know that banks like Sterling bank, Fidelity and Stanbic would offer you a better deal on your foreign cheque. They are more customer friendly
WOW! This is outrageous! I have never heard of such bank charges. I mean, here there can be some annoying fees an such but basically making a check disappear through charges that’s ridiculous!
Sorry for the loss, or what can I say? As far back as 1991-93 one could ‘sell’ foreign cheques to exchange people who will sell to traders going overseas for business. The banks in Nigeria have vowed to be both irresponsible and non-responsive to non-big bag customers like you and me.
Why don’t you explore this with your neighborhood Sabo/Mallam to see whether that will work. Even if they buy it at a lower exchange rate, it will never be 44% less.
I know that one day, we will have solutions that will avoid those greedy banks.
Another option you can explore is to talk with your advertiser about opening a paypal account and using it.
Nigeria na waa.
I think you should look for another bank or try another branch when next you want to pay your cheque. Perhaps some bad eggs at that bank are the ones shortchanging you. Using internet banking would also be useful.
This is so not funny @ all. 44% of your TRULY hard earned money in the hands of another. It’s at times like this that I feel we all are better off getting Payoneer Mastercards and dealing with foreign firms that pay through them. These bank charges no even reach wetin Payoneer go charge you to withdraw from your card here in Nigeria.
BTW which bank be this oh? Na GTB? I’ve been seeing some funny funny deductions in my account but I’m yet to follow them through to see if there are legal or not.
Also thanks for the NigeriaPostcodes tip. I used it to order for my Payoneer Mastercard and it worked. The card arrived after 40 days. Now I’m awaiting my Google Adsense PIN. Hopefully it’ll arrive by the middle of this month. (Fingers crossed)
@Chukwudi
It is not GTBank. I was actually thinking of switching to GTBank, but now you’ve just scared me!
I’m happy you finally got the postcode right. Cheers.
Have been using GT Bank for sometime now. Their service is ok, no hidden charges just like u narrated.
I was actually thinking of trying GTBank, but Udeagbunam who commented earlier scared me. I’m still making my inquiries. Thanks for the recommendation.
LOL. Guy it wasn’t my intention to scare you oh! Besides I’ve been looking @ the charges and they seem legit
@Andy: Please what are their charges like? Fill us in abeg.
lol, what were you expecting, having been bitten once, you should expect me to be twice shy. Isn’t it.
You still haven’t told us which bank made this outrageous charges. Protect the rest of us from this now!
Abi you get shares with the bank in question
Udegbunam Chukwudi | StrictlyOnlineBiz´s last blog ..Make Your Blog 10x Faster With W3 Total Cache Plug-in
Sorry Chukwudi, I promote those that do me favor. I quietly let alone those that upset me, except they are outright DUBIOUS. Since the bank claimed that is how they want to do their business, I have the option of going quietly to another bank. So, I won’t publish their name now or in the foreseeable future. I’m already planning to visit GTBank. Cheers.
Am an adsense publisher and GTbank have been clearing my cheques since 2008. Their flat fee for cheques under a thousand dollars is $10.50. No other hidden charges. And of course it takes 21 days for the cheque to clear. For cheques above $1000, the clearing fee is 1%. So they will charge you $20 for $2000 dollar cheque. I think that’s fair enough. Was actually looking for faster clearing methods when i came opun this post.
Another reason why i would suggest GTbank is the ease of opening a DOM account. Just your driver’s license and Nepa Bill and you are good to go. No initial deposit like most banks ask for.
Lastly, please guys step up your game, i feel encouraged when i see young men making out ways for themselves instead of waiting for bank jobs. Some of the employees at the branch of GTbank i use are currently my students, they marvel anytime i come to deposit a cheque. By his grace, i have passed beyond the 2000 euro mark, please $100 is money, but i can assure you adsense is a goldmine. You just have to be a little more creative. One Tip, its easier to make $100 dollar from one website and have 20 websites than have one website and make $2000.
Nice meeting you.
Thanks for the clarification with regards to GTB.
Udegbunam Chukwudi | StrictlyOnlineBiz´s last blog ..Spamming et Scamming Via Comment & Contact Forms
Are you sure GT still charges that amount? Or is the fee restricted to checks from Adsense?
Hello Naija,
Udegbunam recommended your blog and I am interested in finding a reasonable way to send money to Nigeria to legitimate workers interested in assisting businesses in other countries.
The exchange rate should be favorable so that Nigerian workers could make a good living while businesses that are being severely impacted by the current economic decline could more easily afford to hire them.
My hope is that they would then also be able to afford workers in other countries where the USD (U.S. dollar) isn’t going nearly as far as it once did.
I would be interested in hearing from you about the best ways to pay freelance workers in your country and also whether you or any others you know who write English as well as you and Udegbunam do are interested in collaborating with me.
I look forward to hearing what you have to say. You can read more about I predict the U.S. economy is not going to recover any time soon and the solution to economic woes for those in every country.
Gail from GrowMap´s last blog ..Support Small Businesses
Gail, thanks for visiting. Udegbunam is one of the Nigerian bloggers I respect so much.
It is difficult recommending a particular way of remunerating freelance workers in Nigeria. The reason being that bank charges on income paid to such workers can be quite high and it takes approximately 21 days to get a cheque cleared into a Nigerian bank account.
If I may suggest, I’ll recommend Payooner MasterCard Debit card as a good way to remunerate. Payment is effected within 7days and withdrawal can be done anywhere in the world.
Another option is via Western Union Money transfer, however, I’m not sure many employer will love to go through the stress of using that means of payment. Life would have been a lot easier if PayPal allow genuine Nigerians to make use of their service. AlertPay is a good alternative, but they are quite slow in responding to tickets.
I will be willing to provide any other support you may need from me. Cheers.
We definitely want to find the very best way to send payment that takes the least time and takes the lowest percentage. Checks sound like a bad idea unless you find a bank that is far more reasonable about their charges.
It is ridiculous that they can’t clear a check in less than three weeks. One other method you haven’t mentioned would be to wire money bank to bank. It is usually considered expensive and like all methods has some risks but works for sending money between at least some countries.
The MasterCard Debit card is definitely one to check. Western Union is a major pain and charges ridiculous rates for the “convenience” of using their Web site instead of physically going to a Western Union location. Even then their charges are significantly higher than using something like PayPal.
What else do you know about AlertPay? Have there been any serious issues you’ve heard of with using them? PayPal was rather slow to answer support tickets for a long time but now they seem to have a lot more employees than they once did.
Another alternative I have seen is SendMoneyHome. Do you know anything about them?
Would you be interested in paid work?
Gail from GrowMap´s last blog ..How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs
Gail, that is the reality in Nigeria. An online entrepreneur in Nigeria has so much hurdle to summount in other to survive.
We just pray and hope that things will get better. The black sheep among us have done some terrible damage to Nigerians reputation online.
To the best of my knowledge, AlertPay is good as far as online transactions are concerned. However if a user need to withdraw the fund into a Nigerian bank account, he or she would be incurring charges twice. First, from AlertPay and then secondly from the Nigerian bank.
I recommend the bank to bank wire transfer if the amount is over $100. Anything below that may get eaten up in transit (via charges). The banks still charge between $10 to $25 on wire transfer before the fund hit the account because many of them do not deal directly with other banks in the international market. They go through proxy banks that are refer to as foreign correspondence bank. That means extra charges.
I’ve not used SendMoneyHome before. I’ll find out how it works.
I’ll be interested in paid work as long as it doesn’t contradict my vision. Cheers.
It is ridiculous to censor an entire country because of the con artists. No country and certainly not the U.S. has any lack of those. The problem with many is that they always do what is easiest instead of what is right.
Nigerian entrepreneurs have a huge advantage that they can use to generatea incomes online and that is the difference in value of your currency versus the U.S. and other countries. That is why there is so much work in India now and the exchange rate is even more favorable for you than them.
I would need to know more about what your vision is to know how it fits into mine; however, I believe they would be complementary. There is much work that someone like you can do that you can sell for less than people in the U.S. can because a USD goes much further there than here.
You can use the same skills to grow your blog and business as you can sell to assist small businesses in my country not to fail because of the economic decline that is continuing to get worse and will be far worse than any we have ever seen before.
Only those businesses who collaborate quickly with people like you and Udegbunam are likely to survive what is happening – and what I know you need to know, too, as it can affect your businesss as well.
Gail from GrowMap´s last blog ..Affiliate Tips Tuesday: Holiday Promotions
Good discussion but I wonder why the reluctance to name the bank. I see this reluctance to name individuals or businesses, that are alledged to have done wrong, occur quite frequently with 9ja news outlets and I think the attitude should be different.
Providing specifics can help people avoid this bank or might even pressure the bank to seek alternatives or consider reducing these fees.
Sha, good discussion overall.
If there are banks that can be trusted I don’t know any. The latest way they make money off the unsuspecting here is to give them a “free” checking account that automatically moves $75 from their checking account into their savings account each month.
If they don’t have it in the savings account they charge a $35 fee against the checking account and a $10 fee against their savings account. Naturally they don’t actually explain that when they open the account – it is hidden in the fine print.
And that isn’t the end of the fees. If they didn’t know the $75 was taken out they will bounce checks and that means more $35 fees. Even their employees can be charged $35 twice for each check they can’t cover – even if they are only short a few cents.
The banks offer to “help” their customers avoid all these fees by letting them sign up for overdraft “protection” – which costs – you guessed it – MORE fees.
The poor and the wise would do well to be VERY careful about using a bank account. If you have to have one be certain you don’t overdraw it. Using debit cards only is one way but they have other drawbacks.
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Hiding things in the “fine prints” and not drawing attention of customers to it until it favors the bank is one way banks defraud unsuspecting customers. The most annoying thing is that it is legalized.
So many people are paying for charges and fees they know nothing about. However, when you complain you will be given a lengthy document (which look more like a case file) detailing how you have agreed unwittingly (when opening the account) to pay such charges.
if there is a problem like this one and what you are doing is advert on your site, talk to the advertiser, if Western Union or MoneyGram could be arranged for your payment, you will only have to agree to be the one paying the commission, which I know is can not be up to 44%.
And on the issue of only promoting those that have done you a favour, and not telling us the bank, don’t you think that you helping to encourage a bad practice, if we stop patronizing that bank, they look into the matter and be the better off for it, think about this!
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Well, I think we are looking at it from different point of view. There are some other good things that bank has to offer. And I’ve learned that many other Nigerian banks are doing the same thing. Nonetheless, it is a personal policy I have for now. I’m not convinced yet to change my stance. Thanks for adding your thought. Cheers.
Well,for your information banks generally will always rip-off her customers whether they like it or not because over 50% of their earnings are from their customers. All you need do as a business person is to have accounting experience or better still have a forensic Accountant as advisor or consultant.it’s always viable than trying the other side. Refer me to any business person that is doing serious business with banks, i will always give a helping hand for a token, because i am a forensic Accountant.
Chris, thanks for the offer. A pity the amount involved for now is too small to accommodate consultation charges.
When the income grows big enough to dig it out with the banks, I’ll remember your offer. I’ve heard of forensic accountants before, but I didn’t know we have them available in Nigeria. I’m happy I’ve met one! Nobody is going to cheat me with frivolous charges and get away easily!
My friend I got your mail and was really glad about it. It tells me someone somewhere is always on this site or rather searching for good informations. Have a blest week and fell free to contact me or recommend me to some other people that may need my services. In addition to what i have said so far i train people and companies in the usage of accounting softwares like peachtree, sage and advance EXCEL for financial modelling. My contact is 08085959383.Do have a blessed week.
Thanks