By Wonita Stephens From Guyana Guardian

Putting your money in the bank and knowing that it will be safe there is the primary reason why many persons would opt to happily put their deposits into the trust of licensed financial institutions.

But that does not seem to be the case for at least two customers, who are now accusing Republic Bank Guyana of making several unauthorized withdrawal of monies from their account, obviously without their knowledge.

One of the complaining persons who happens to be a Law student, told the Guyana Guardian that after depositing some $160,000 into his Republic Bank Account on Monday, he discovered that some $26,000 had disappeared from his account by the next day.

He further claimed that after complaining to the bank, a supervisor told him that she was not sure where the money went, and suggested that he wait the next day to see if any record of the missing sum would show up. But up to this (Thursday) morning, there was still no explanation as to where the customer’s money had gone.

In an effort to clarify the young man’s story, the Guyana Guardian sent a reporter to the bank along with the affected customer who then consulted with one of the bank staffers in the presence of the said reporter.
After checking the young man’s account history, the staff similarly said that “I do not know why the $26,000 was missing from the account. There is no record showing where and why it was deducted”.

Not satisfied with that explanation, the upset customer then escalated the issue with a junior manager of the bank at Camp and Robb Street this morning, who then claimed that the money was taken by Amazon, but they do not know for what.

A subsequent check by this publication with the Media Relations unit at Amazon today resulted in a response some two hours later from the American online shopping company in which they disputed the claims made by the bank.

When confronted with the communication from Amazon, Republic Bank would only say that they will take up to 30 days to investigate the matter, which can see the customer being refunded some two months later.

Like the young man, another youth has also reported to this publication via the Guardian’s Facebook page, that he had a similar incident with the bank, while lamenting that “Republic Bank stole my money”. He added that this seems to be a regular feature at the financial institution.

Both men are now urging the relevant authorities to take a more serious look at how the Trinidadian owned bank is mistreating or supposedly defrauding their Guyanese customers. They also want the Board of Directors of the Bank to urgently look into their plight since it is Christmas time, and they need their monies.

This is not the first time that this type of accusation is being levelled against Republic Bank

And despite the publication (by various media houses) of numerous complaints and accusations of financial misconduct by the bank against many of its Guyanese customers, the Bank of Guyana is seemingly too helpless to investigate, or is simply refusing to act on these accusations.

Efforts to solicit a comment from the Head of the Central Bank, Dr. Gobin Ganga, on these recent incidents have since proved futile.

For more on this story go to: https://www.guyanaguardian.com/republic-bank-stole-my-money-says-upset-customer-2/