Yellow Card Saga: PR firm acting on behalf of Yellow Card responds to CNA report
By Nfor Hanson Nchanji
On Tuesday, January 2, 2024, Image Nation, a PR company reached out to our newsroom to debunk an article written on December 29, 2023, which they described as grossly inaccurate, Cameroonian Lawyer detained: Yellow Card seeks intervention of Ambassador as clients accuse US fintech of ‘confiscating money’ – Cameroon News Agency with a follow-up Yellow Card Saga: Cameroonian clients vow to retrieve money ‘confiscated’ by American company – Cameroon News Agency
In the article, one of the interviewees and client of Yellow Card, Cedric Fon said the company’s manager in Cameroon reached out to them for a business transaction on October 17, 2023. ( CNA obtained a screenshot of a group chat)
“Electronic communications between the parties on October 17, 2023, clearly document that Mr. Fonyam was not in any way involved in those communications with Messrs. Bodang and Fon, as he is not even a member of that chat group, and his name does not appear even once in records containing thousands of messages over two years.” Yellow Card debunked the claims.
We reached out to Fon to react to find out if he lied about the issue, “Traders in the group advertised a trade. Scammed the money. Fonyam maybe in the group using another number but I recently got his new contacts as we investigated to know who is behind the management of Yellow Card Cameroon and they bank gave us the information. Traders in each OTC group execute trade on behalf of the company which Fonyam is their manager,” he said.
But Yellow Card said throughout the two years of their interactions, Jonie Fonyam has never spoken with them on any business deal, maintaining that the detention of Fonyam is illegal.
Barrister Fonyam Jonie who has a 1% share and is currently the Country Manager of Yellow Card Cameroon is being detained since December 18, 2023, for not refunding or giving the clients money equivalent to more than FCFA 500 million in USD.
Yellow Card also noted to CNA that FCAF 27 million, money owed to one of its clients, Fon was paid after calculating debts owed by him,
“As to the claims of Mr. Fon regarding a FCFA 27 million transaction, Yellow Card has already
Yellow Card January 2, 2023
credited Mr. Fon with that amount in determining the amount of his debt owed to Yellow Card, so
that transaction is not in contention. In fact, Yellow Card has even tried to refund to Mr. Fon the
excess of the amount deducted from the October 17, 2023 transaction (approximately $16,000) to
satisfy his debt, but Mr. Fon has refused to confirm his transfer details so that these funds may be
returned to him. Moreover, if Mr. Fon truly believes that Yellow Card has perpetrated a fraud
upon him, Yellow Card fails to comprehend why Mr. Fon has continued to conduct business
with Yellow Card even after he filed his criminal complaint, successfully completing 15
transactions worth many tens of thousands of USD as recently as December 12, 2023, five
days after a summons and arrest warrant was issued for Mr. Fonyam and two months after
the October 17th transaction which was used to offset his debt.”
“I shared to them the transaction history of the 27m and they acknowledged it but came and say they want to pay me only 16,399$. I didn’t even reply anything to them,” Fon said replied.
The bone of contention is that Yellow Card said the two clients owe them money and this was during the period when Ndikombui Nigel worked as a former Country Manager. CNA reached out to Nigel to find out how the debts came about, after several days of talking and making appointments, Nigel sent a settlement statement between him and Yellow Card Cameroon and a long note explaining that,
Yellow card does not sell on credit. When payment is received and confirmed in Cameroon, a second confirmation is done by the CEO ( Christopher Maurice) who was equally a signatory to all the accounts and with “view all access”. He then confirms in the group or platform where everyone mentioned above including the client can see,and then he instructs the sales manager incharge of the dollars from South Africa to initiate the dollars transfer to the client( Note that the sales manager does not have the access to transfer dollars to the customers account alone, he only initiates and the final confirmation and release of dollars is done by the controller of the dollars based in Dubai or the CEO.In return the client acknowledges receipt of dollars for the transaction to be completed.This same trading process was carried out in all the different client group
Ndikombui Nigel, former Yellow Card country Manager
Finally, on the issue of cash payment, Yellow Card said, “Messrs. Bodang and Fon would like us to believe that, in Cameroon and when dealing in large amounts of cash, they failed to confirm by any means of any type of communication or receipt in October 2021 that they had given to Mr. Mingoh – and that Mr. Mingoh had received – substantial amounts of cash when he was expressly prohibited from doing so, even though the substantial portion of each payment due was made by them at the bank personally via deposit directly into Yellow Card’s bank accounts. Messrs. Bodang and Fon have raised this claim for the first time only two years after the transactions in question. Yellow Card does not accept – and has never accepted cash paid directly to company representatives, as this is not permitted as an acceptable form of
payment as part of Yellow Card’s compliance with anti-money laundering and financial crime laws
and regulations, which, as a U.S. parent company, it takes extremely seriously.”
The former Manager, Ndikombui Nigel, reiterated that the two clients did not owe the company before he left, which is why when he resigned, he was compensated, ” To what happened in Yellow Card after I left I cannot explain. But if actually yellow card is holding money from Sébastien and Cedric in relation to the time I was there then Yellow Card is not truthful and should reimburse their money. Several audits were done before I left the company and I was finally settled with 35,000$ and the legal council of Yellow Card from the US(Craig)came to Cameroon for all this transition to be done and my shares, directorship and rights were handed over to their selected representative. Again if actually Sébastien or Cedric were owing within my period of stay at YC, the following wouldn’t have been done by Yellow Card;
peacefully and amicably sign a settlement agreement with me and paying my other rights when I resigned. Yellow Card will not wait until two years after before illegally confiscating their money in form of recovering their lost money. I was never notified or informed that Cedric and Sébastien were owing before I left.”
