A widow has filed a lawsuit against Safaricom seeking damages for failing to safeguard her late husband’s Mpesa account after funds were taken out of it.
Agneta Sakwa, a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit brought against Safaricom, claims she found out her late husband’s account had been wiped out after he was buried.
Agneta’s spouse, Dr. Anselmy Onyango, passed away on July 17 of last year at the Mp-Shah Hospital.
The deceased physician was a top radiation oncologist who served as the chief consultant and head of the cancer treatment centers at the Coast General hospital and the Kenyatta National Hospital. At the Nairobi Hospital, he was also a top radiation oncologist.
Agneta claims in her affidavit that she found her husband’s line had stopped functioning immediately after his burial.
When something went wrong, she contacted Safaricom to find out what. She was told by the customer service representative who answered her call that her deceased husband had called to request a SIM swap.
She informed the telco that Onyango was already dead and could not have awakened from his resting spot for a sim swap, which caught them off guard.
“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.
