Funmi Oyatogun, a travel influencer and founder TVP Adventures, has called out Cowrywise, a startup that helps make saving and investing seamless, for not refunding her stolen money.
Oyatogun tweeted that her money which is a few million was stolen from her Cowrywise Stash account and despite the fact that the startup was able to trace the source of the fraud, she is yet to be refunded her money.
She added that it took her months before she finally decided to call out the fintech startup.
“The biggest lesson I learned this year is that everybody treats you nicely because of what they get from you. For years, I was a happy customer and megaphone. Then my money gets stolen and *boom*, horrible treatment. Thanks, @cowrywise for this lesson. Painful but worth it.
“A few million Naira was stolen from my @cowrywise stash (if it happened to me, it can happen to anyone). Cowrywise has traced the origin of the theft and have the details of the thieves. I was also promised that I will get my money back. I have not gotten it back.
“It is one thing that my money was insecure. Note, following my incident and at my recommendation, Cowrywise has since disabled external transfers on Stash. It is another thing that the leadership does not prioritize reimbursements of obvious theft and then chasing the back end.
“I hate this so much. It took me months to finally do this. I simply want my money back. In the middle of a pandemic. From a company I trusted so much, that I had a personal account, business account, and told every Tam, Drake and Henry about them.
“I hate this. I do not call out disappointments on Twitter, talk less of brands. But I feel like since Cowrywise has treated me like trash all along, and I am also one of their loudest customers, it is only fair. I’m sorry. I am very sorry. I just want my hard-earned Naira.
“Money was stolen from their platform and they did not refund it to me, months later. Instead, they are still working on it. My money was stolen from a platform I trusted. I want it back. That’s all.”
Responding to Oyatogun’s complaint, Cowrywise said that since it started business 3-years-ago, it has never experienced fraud on customer funds. It clarified that reports about stolen funds should be reported immediately. Unfortunately, they were notified about the issue two-weeks later.
On why there is a delay in resolving the issue: Cowrywise said “It is because the bank doesn’t consider one of the recipient accounts as fraudulent. Hence the need for a court order to effect the reversal. Thank you for being a fan of the brand over the years. We’ll keep loving you. Rest assured, we have not given up in finding a resolution.”
What is Cowrywise Stash?
First, let’s use an example. Imagine you’ve set up an investment plan. Sadly, there’s a funding hurdle; you don’t have a debit card. Thankfully, with Stash, that’s no problem. It helps you invest without a debit card. There’s more, but let’s explain this.
The feature works like an e-wallet. Once set up, it provides you with an account number that you can make transfers to. The money in your Stash can be used to:
- Top up your savings and investment plans. It’s super fast that way.
- Receive payout of returns from your investments
- Receive mature funds from your saving plans
- Transfer money to other Cowrywise users, for free!
