A widow has gone to court seeking compensation from Safaricom for failing to protect her dead husband’s Mpesa account after money was withdrawn from it.
Agneta Sakwa who has joined a class action suit against Safaricom says she discovered her late husband’s account was wiped out immediately after burying him.
Dr Anselmy Onyango who was Agneta’s husband died in July 17 last year at the Mp-Shah Hospital.
The late doctor was a senior Radiation Oncologist and former Head of The Cancer Treatment Centre, Kenyatta National Hospital, and Chief consultant and Head of the Cancer Treatment Centre at the Coast General hospital. He was also a senior Radiation Oncologist at the Nairobi Hospital.
Immediately after his burial, Agneta says in her affidavit that she discovered her husband’s line had become inactive.
She then called Safaricom to find out what was wrong. The customer care service official who answered her call informed her that her late husband had called to request a SIM swap.
Surprised, she told the telco that Onyango was already deceased and could not have woken up from his resting place for a sim swap.
“The customer service agent I met informed me that the agent who authorized the SIM swap was confident that it was indeed the owner of the line who requested it,” says Agneta.
“This caused me emotional distress and anxiety knowing that I had knowledge of where my husband lay and the fact that it was impossible for him to rise from the dead,” narrates the widow.
The company however agreed to replace the line and hand it over to her. The widow says that when the line was replaced, she noticed messages that Mshwari, Timiza, KCB, and Fuliza loans were all taken in a span of three minutes on August 3, 2022.
“The fraudsters had taken Sh5, 232 from Mshwari, Sh13, 815 from Timiza, a KCB loan Sh2,715, and Fuliza Sh28,119,” she says. They also transferred the accumulated 63,000 Bonga points.
According to Agneta, the number that received the funds is owned by one Charles Murungi.
“ I have provided the information to the first defendant (Safaricom) and the police but no action has been taken,” she says.
