Nana Appiah Mensah aka NAM
Chief Executive Officer of gold dealership company, Menzgold Ghana Limited, Nana Appiah Mensah, has asked customers to retrieve their funds from the company instead of holding him liable for their money.
The CEO of the defunct company said this in a conversation on Twitter Spaces while defending his decision to charge customers an amount of GH¢650 each for validation of claims for payment.
According to the CEO, popularly known as NAM 1, the customers did not directly deposit their funds with him but the company, hence should deal with the company.
He said, “They didn’t put money in my hands. They transacted with a duly registered company and, unfortunately, in business things happen, and there is a problem.”
He said it was important to verify the claims of his clients before making any payment, as some could be presenting false claims.
While admitting that the GH¢650 fee charged for verification was high, he said it was important that the claims were verified before making any payment, to enable them verify false claims, given the high cost of investment into the digital verification system.
“We need to subject all those claims to thorough investigation and scrutiny just so we can separate the chaff from the wheat. Personally, I think the GH¢650 is on the high side but there’s a cost element that went into the production of this PVC Digital Access Card,” he stated.
Nana Appiah Mensah, in a statement issued on August 18, announced fresh round of validation of customers’ transaction claims following what he claimed were unacceptable infractions that the initial exercise was fraught with, which rendered 60 percent of claims invalid.
Under the new validation process, customers were required to purchase a Menzgold Digital Verification Access Card at a cost of GH¢650 each to enable them check their transactions validation status and to upload supporting documents of their transactions.
The announcement, however, received public backlash, with many accusing him of deploying a new scheme to dupe the distraught customers.
Meanwhile, in an interview on Metro TV, PRO of Aggrieved Menzgold Customers, Fred Forson, detailed past attempts by NAM 1 to continuously dupe the customers, and urged them not to fall for his fraudulent schemes again.
But moments after he defended the decision in the Twitter Spaces’ conversation, the company released a press statement backtracking on its decision, citing the backlash and “extensive engagement with stakeholders” as reason for the U-turn.
It said customers will no longer be required to purchase the Digital Access Card and will resort to the printing of only the PIN codes, which come at no cost, to customers seeking to validate their claims as customers whose claims have been found to be invalid should either give up on their investments or pay a fee to seek a review. This, the statement said, is to avoid abuse of time and resources.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah