Concern about fraudulent activity, relating to transactions for some National Commercial Bank (NCB) customers and ride share entity Uber, has resulted in the bank freezing over 300 accounts while the matter is investigated.

The transaction issue also resulted in several NCB customers seeing large deductions of funds for past Uber services, as well as liens placed on the accounts of customers with insufficient funds.

The actions taken by the bank come in the wake of its probe into suspicious transactions for Uber services since may this year and a glitch in the system.

In a statement, NCB said it has identified and is actively addressing a technical issue affecting Uber transactions made by some customers using their visa debit cards.

This issue resulted in certain transactions not being charged to customers’ accounts leading to unpaid balances and in some cases potential fraudulent activity or scams.

During a review, NCB detected unusual activity patterns, including instances where some customers completed an exceptionally high number of Uber transactions, some exceeding 700 rides within a single month, indicating possible misuse or exploitation of the issue.

NCB said it communicated with visa debit customers regarding the funds owed and which will be processed for Uber transactions made.

The bank has processed the owed balances where there are funds in the accounts or temporarily placed liens on accounts with insufficient funds until the outstanding amounts are recovered.

Accounts flagged for suspicious activity will be blocked pending further review.

NCB said it is working closely with visa to identify and resolve the underlying cause of this issue.

Approximately one percent of visa debit cardholders, that’s over 8000 accounts, have been impacted, with investigated transactions dating back to may.

NCB said it understands the importance of maintaining transparency and is committed to updating customers as new information becomes available.

The bank has temporarily frozen about 3 hundred accounts for further investigation due to unusually high volumes and types of Uber transactions.

It said the immediate priority is to ensure that all impacted accounts are accurately reconciled.