Philip Murgor has threatened to sue NCBA Bank for wrongly listing him as a loan defaulter over a disputed Sh1,300 Fuliza loan.
Mr Murgor who is one of the country’s senior-most lawyers, has accused NCBA of failing to verify the information before erroneously listing him with credit reference bureaus as a loan defaulter.
According to the senior counsel, the negative listing interfered with his efforts to seek financing for insurance meant for his law firm, Murgor & Murgor Advocates.
Moreover, NCBA listed Mr Murgor with CRB on May 7, 2021, after its records showed that a mobile phone number registered with the senior lawyer’s identity card had defaulted on the Fuliza loan.
According to NCBA, the said phone number was registered using Mr Murgor’s identification documents, but Murgor says the line is in another person’s name.
However, NCBA claims that the phone number was registered in Philip Murgor’s name at the time the Fuliza loan was disbursed.
Also Read: CRB to Delete More than 4 Million Fuliza Defaulters
Nonetheless, Fuliza is an overdraft offered by NCBA, KCB Bank and Safaricom. The service allows subscribers to complete financial transactions from their mobile phone wallets, even with insufficient balance.
Furthermore, on September 23, 2022, Mr Murgor was seeking Sh403,000 in financing from NCBA to pay for insurance premiums for his law firm, but the application was rejected on account of the Fuliza loan.
An NCBA agent called the senior Lawyer and informed him that the loan application could not be processed until the Sh1,300 debt was repaid in full.
However, the NCBA agent did not reveal which institution had listed Mr Murgor negatively despite the lawyer’s request for more information on the disputed debt.
As a result, Philip Murgor requested to speak to her superior, who then called him on September 28 but also refused to reveal which institution had done the listing.
Nevertheless, Mr Murgor applied for a credit report from Metropol Corporation Limited. The report showed that he had been listed by NCBA negatively over the Sh1,300 overdrafts that he never took.
Additionally, the senior counsel has threatened legal action against NCBA, faulting them for failing to verify whether he had indeed borrowed money through Fuliza.
“NCBA at all material times failed to exercise reasonable skill and care before forwarding the false reports about our client for publication and general circulation, as it took no steps to ascertain whether or not our client had indeed opened, or operated a Fuliza overdraft account … A preliminary and even casual enquiry would have confirmed that our client was not the legitimate owner of mobile number (withheld), and that he has not obtained a Fuliza overdraft facility under the said mobile number,” Mr Murgor says in his letter to NCBA.
However, in its response to Mr Murgor’s demand letter NCBA claims to have listed him based on information at its disposal.
