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Cebu City - Depositors of a commercial bank that lost millions of pesos through unauthorized withdrawals from their accounts by the bank’s branch manager are set to file civil and criminal charges against the officer and the bank.
The subject bank located in uptown Cebu City was not the only branch affected as another branch of the same bank also lost their money through fraudulent bank transactions, according to a source.
CDN Digital is withholding the name of the bank as attempts continue to get its side on the allegation.
One of the victims told CDN Digital (October 26, 2019) the branch manager was able to withdraw P3 million from her time deposit account through forged documents and signatures validated by other bank officers.
The source claimed another depositor lost P7 million through the fraudulent transaction. At least 20 other depositors lost millions of pesos from the illegal withdrawals for an estimated combined loss of 30 to P50 million.
The series of illegal withdrawals happened in September this year. But according to one of the victims who spoke with CDN Digital, the scam could have happened as early as July this year after a businesswoman-client of the bank reported that P4 million in her deposit account went missing.
The source said the bank manager could have pilfered money from several time deposit accounts in order to reconcile the financial transaction.
According to her, she got wind of the fraudulent scheme when she told the manager this month that she intends to pre-terminate her time deposit account because she needed money for a big purchase. Despite her persistent requests and the bank manager’s assurance, she wasn’t able to withdraw the money from her time deposit account. Prior to this she also noted the bank failed sending her statement of accounts, a regular monthly report issued by the bank for their depositors.
The victim said she and the other victims placed their money in the said bank because they trusted the manager, who, the source said, was a good friend.
One of the victims found out that his time deposit account had been emptied when he applied for a visa to travel to the United Kingdom. Not knowing that funds from his time deposits had been fraudulently withdrawn, he submitted a bank certification which the UK embassy discovered to be spurious. As a result, the UK government blacklisted the bank client from entering the country.
According to the source, she received reports that the branch manager has fled to Singapore.
Yesterday, the victims were set to go to the National Bureau of Investigation to seek the agency’s help but NBI 7 top officials were not available.
Once a case is filed in court, the victims could seek the help of the International Police Organization (Interpol) through its National Central Bureau (NCB) in the Philippines.
In a separate interview, Lawyer Gary Maningo, manager of the Bangko Sentral Ng Pilipinas, said the aggrieved depositors may file a a complaint before the BSP’s Financial Consumers Protection Department.
Financial consumers aggrieved by the conduct, products and services of a financial institution may seek redress through FCPD which is mandated to provide consumer assistance through “an effective redress mechanism,” according to Maningo. - CDN Digital
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Topic: Bank Scam in Cebu (Read 622 times)