A Nigerian businesswoman, identified as Mrs Oyedeji, says she has spent months trying to recover ₦241,000 after mistakenly transferring the money to a stranger’s PalmPay account and accuses the fintech company of stonewalling her at every turn.
Mrs Oyedeji says the error occurred on May 8, 2026, when she attempted to transfer ₦241,000 from her Moniepoint account to her own PalmPay wallet, but instead keyed in the details of an unrelated PalmPay customer.
By the time she noticed the mistake, the funds had already landed in the wrong hands.
She said she immediately alerted Moniepoint, which flagged the issue to PalmPay. According to her account, the receiving account was subsequently frozen after PalmPay contacted the account holder, who reportedly claimed he believed the transfer was fraudulent and was reluctant to release the funds voluntarily.
Rather than resolving the matter quickly, Mrs Oyedeji says PalmPay staff directed her to obtain a court order before they would consider releasing the frozen funds. She complied, but says even that wasn’t enough.
Staff reportedly assured her the money was safely sitting in the frozen account. Weeks later, when she returned to press for a resolution, she says she was instead handed the recipient’s phone number, with no clear next steps.
On a separate visit, she claims she was told she had simply been going to the wrong PalmPay branch all along.
More than three weeks after presenting the court order, she says PalmPay had still not refunded her money, and staff continued to tell her there was nothing they could do.
“Nigerians, please help me beg PalmPay to release my money,” she appealed publicly, describing herself as being ignored by the company’s staff throughout the process.
The story has struck a nerve online, with Nigerians sharing similar experiences and venting frustration at how banks and fintech platforms handle erroneous transfers.
One user, @ShadowPulse202, urged people to always verify account names and numbers multiple times before sending money, warning that recovery afterwards is often impossible.
Another user, @thankgod035_94, recounted a comparable case involving a customer who mistakenly sent ₦215,000 to the wrong account on a rival platform, OPay, earlier this year. He said he released goods on credit out of sympathy for the customer, who has since gone silent and stopped repaying him. He said that goodwill isn’t always reciprocated.
Commenter @stanobi47 argued that banks bear much of the blame, insisting that when a customer reports an erroneous transaction, the institution itself should be able to trace and recover the funds without forcing the victim to spend extra money, sometimes as much as ₦100,000 on legal processes.
@UchechiClinton was more scathing, accusing banks generally of being fast to collect fees but slow to help customers in distress, calling PalmPay’s handling of the situation “crazy.”
Not everyone piled on the institutions, however. @Iam_naganation questioned how such mistakes happen at all, noting that transfer platforms typically display the receiving account holder’s name for verification before funds are sent.
Meanwhile, in an unexpected twist, a user identifying as @LordZeus_Usulor claimed Mrs Oyedeji is his aunt and appealed for someone to connect him with her, promising to repay the money himself so she could “stop troubling herself.”
Others, like @ddmiesi, called for greater transparency from PalmPay, arguing that if the funds were genuinely frozen and safe, there should be a clear legal pathway to return them without dragging the process out for months.
Comparing the experience to processes abroad, @Edvinng suggested that in other countries, a single phone call would be enough to resolve this kind of dispute — a sentiment several commenters echoed as frustration with Nigeria’s financial dispute-resolution systems continued to build.
As of the latest update, Mrs Oyedeji says her money remains unreleased, months after the erroneous transfer. #Securitynewsalert.com
