Withdrawal of money from customer accounts: Orange Money accuses Eneo

Not a day will go by without a scandal shaking Cameroon. This time, it concerns the telephone company Orange Cameroon, which in an explained manner proceeded to withdraw money from the accounts of some customers. Faced with the cries of these customers, it wanted to communicate to clarify the situation.

Indeed, from July 11 in the evening until this Friday morning, several Cameroonians complained about the fact that they noticed unexplained withdrawals of money from their Orange Money accounts, while no withdrawal action had been initiated by them.

“I don’t understand this story. I only received a withdrawal message on my account from Orange, while I did not initiate a withdrawal.” complaining about a customer. Another, under a company post, said “this was my last money left. Sorry, give my money back”. Several other complaints of the same type flooded the web, making what seemed like a joke seem like a very serious and real fact.

Faced with this digital demonstration of anger by Orange Cameroon subscribers who were victims of these withdrawals, a press release on behalf of this company was circulated to clarify the facts, stating that these unexpected withdrawals can be explained by the fact that the latter would have benefited from Eneo tokens without being debited.

“We assure you that these charges are in no way linked to any hacking activity or unauthorized access to your accounts,” Orange specifies, before adding “In fact, these withdrawals follow an automatic regularization of previously undebited payments for the purchase of Eneo tokens that you made”.

Further, she specifies that “This adjustment has been made to ensure the integrity of your transactions and to ensure that all parties involved are properly compensated.”Without confirming that the victims will be reimbursed, Orange mentions in its press release that the Eneo tokens that they may have purchased can be used to top up their meters, if this is not already the case.

This statement was supposed to reassure customers, but had the opposite effect on the protection of customer data and the security of their accounts. “So Orange decides to manage Eneo’s return without notifying customers?” asked one customer. “Who gives you the right to carry out a debit transaction to pay a third party without having initially notified at least the owner of the account?! Why react after many complaints? In other words, if you had not had complaints on the social networks of the victims of this abusive debit, the situation would have gone unnoticed! ask another one.

A strange fact that worries!

Gilles Noubissie

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