Simple steps to place a lien on your bank account to prevent extortion, fraud this December

In August 2022, a viral video showed a group of heavily armed policemen arresting a number of young Nigerian men at a checkpoint. They bundled the young men into their vehicle and threatened to ship them off to their station unless they ‘settled’ them.

Knowing how unpleasant following the policemen to their station could turn out to be, the young men complied, brought out their smartphones and transferred undisclosed sums of money from their accounts under the keen supervision of the police officers.

In another incident in May, a young Nigerian was brutalized by the police for refusing to unlock his phone to be searched.

These are just two of the numerous cases of police forcefully searching people’s phones before forcing them to make transfers of outrageous sums of money. The reports got so bad that the Nigerian police PRO urged Nigerians to report officers who forcefully searched their phones.

This trend is not limited to the police alone as operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have also been known to adopt this strategy. Kidnappers have also been known to extort humongous sums from their victims simply because they saw that they had it. There is also the growing trend of phone thieves who steal phones just so they can access the bank accounts and steal the funds.

Because all these have become quite a common experience due to the country’s insecurity, it becomes important that you protect yourself and your bank account from the possibility.

One effective way of doing this is to place a lien on the funds in your bank account.

This also means the lien amount (9.5 million) can’t be accessed unless via a written order from the bank owner. Therefore, when the rogue police or EFFC agent or kidnapper opens your bank app, all they see is the restricted amount (N500,000).

Below, we share a step-by-step process to place a lien on your account:

How to place a lien on your bank account

To start the process of placing a lien on your bank account, all you need to do is walk into the closest branch and demand that a lien be placed on your funds. To do this, you have to submit a written instruction to the bank. The bank staff will then verify if you are truly the owner of the account before proceeding.

A Nigerian banker, Raphael, told Technext that originally, every bank executed this instruction from their head office because of the sensitivity of such a request. But nowadays, a handful of banks permit some branches to carry out the instruction.

“If it’s the head office that will do it, the customer’s instruction has to be scanned and sent to head office then the instruction will be filed for reference purposes. But if it’s at the branch that it will be done, after verification of the owner of the account, then it will be done,” Raphael said.

Asked how long this takes, the Lagos banker said though there is no specific timeline, it normally should not take very long. However, because of the drudgery that can accompany activities considered to be adjuncts to the bank’s main businesses, it could take a long time in most Nigerian banks.

He said the reason for the delay most times is the gap between the branch and the head office. Sometimes, branch staff delay in sending the request to head office. At other times, when it gets to the head office, the request will be queued irrespective of the urgency.

“In such a case, it is now the responsibility of the staff who logged it to follow up either with reminder emails or phone calls or both,” he said.

In cases where such delays occur, the banker advised that the best thing to do is to call customer care (which is usually at the head office) while visiting the bank branch where the lien instruction was issued. This will help them execute the instructions a lot quicker.

After placing the lien on your funds, the next step is to write an email indemnity letter to your bank. According to an Abuja-based business consultant, Celestine Okeke, this letter will enable you to write email instructions to modify the lien whenever you need to.

“The email instructions should not come from an email account on your mobile device,” he said.

After placing a lien on your account, clear your previous SMS alerts and leave only the new ones that will drop after the restriction has been executed.

Here is a recap of the steps:

• Walk into the closest branch of your bank and submit a letter demanding that a lien be placed on your funds.
• The bank staff will then verify if you are truly the owner of the account before proceeding
• If there is a delay, call customer care and revisit your branch
• Write an email indemnity letter to your bank, so you can modify the lien later.
• Clear your previous SMS alerts and leave only the new ones that will drop after the restriction has been executed

In conclusion…

People are getting extorted every day, mostly by state actors like the police and the EFCC, while others are getting robbed of their hard-earned money by phone thieves and kidnappers. Prevention is always better and a lien affords you the opportunity to at least limit what could be stolen.

Liened amount in your account will never reflect on your SMS alerts and/or mobile apps, you can only access the fund via written instructions and should only do so on a needs basis.

See also: Regulatory uncertainty is why police would term crypto traders fraudsters