Previously my only experience with this was years ago when using an ATM of my home bank, it shortchanged me $20 on a withdrawal. An ATM balance inquiry showed that the problem just corrected itself electronically the next day. But the other day when using a non-home ATM to withdraw $200, no cash came out with my card & receipt. Not reading the receipt at first I just thought that I had hit CANCEL by mistake and tried it again. Same thing. This time I looked at both receipts and both stated that $200 had been dispensed each time ($400 total!) I thought, hmm, and went to a different ATM a block away and had no problem (my account balance was not even close to being low).
After waiting a day or two I checked online and the withdrawals have stood on my account. So I went to the ATM’s bank (not my bank) with my receipts & my statement, they were very friendly but said I’d have to go to my bank with the info and have them put in the request. Long story short I did this and didn’t have a problem except they said it will take up to ten days for the money to show up credited into my account! It’s a good thing this didn’t happen last year when I was broke, I’d have had to make a stink about getting it sooner.
So my question is how often does this happen? Other than the previous minor incident with my bank’s ATM I’ve never, ***ever ***had even a small ATM discrepancy, even using ones across the country. I always assumed ATMs had plenty of not only electronic but physical interlocks to prevent even minor cash distribution errors. Stiffing my twice in a row for 200 bucks each seemed really out of the ordinary!
For those that *have *experienced this was getting a refund ever a hassle? I’m assuming they won’t need to bother examining the security tape, that the ATM’s regular cash count should obviously not reconcile, right?
I was stiffed by an ATM once in my life, and it was a long time ago – about 25 years ago, if I remember right. I was withdrawing money from an ATM not at my own bank and it shortchanged me by $20. After a bit of investigation my own bank reinbursed me.
There is always a security camera at an ATM location. It has never happened to me, but if it did, I would clearly display the money, holding it up to the camera, and conspicuously count it. Then immediately phone the bank that owns or operates the ATM and report the incident and tell them that it is recorded on the security camera.
Once - kind of. The machine didn’t visibly dispense any money, but it turned out to be stuck in the dispenser slightly out of view, and with a little effort, I could get the money out.
Kinda, but on a deposit, not a withdrawal. I had a big stack of 100’s to deposit (about $1200 as I recall) and went to one of those new machines which has a bill reader that counts your money instead of relying on envelopes and deposit slips. I would stick the pile of cash in the bill reader, but the machine would keep declaring one bill unreadable and then spit out the whole pile. So I started putting them in one at a time and that worked fine, until I got to $1000. Then the machine spazzed out and reset. I put my card and PIN in again and checked my balance; no record of the $1000 that I had just fed to the machine. I deposited the remaining $200 without incident, and made a note of the bank branch number, ATM number, and address, and wrote the bank an email with all the info. They immediately credited my account with $1000 and a week later sent me a letter saying that the credit was now permanent after they had concluded their investigations.
I don’t use those bill-reading ATMs anymore for deposits.
As far as memory serves, I’ve never been shorted by an ATM in my life. I have, however, found cash or even cards left behind by the previous customer. The cards I returned of course, but the cash I took as a sign of positive karma smiling upon me.
I once grabbed a twenty dollar bill that was flying across the pavement, and after looking around carefully to see if anyone was looking for it, I went ahead and pocketed it. It seemed extremely unlikely the money could reach its original owner. I felt a slight twinge of guilt though.
In your case, don’t you think there was some plausible chance that the person who’d accidentally left the money might go to the bank asking if it had been found?
I got stiffed about 20 years ago, just $20. Reported it to the bank that owned the ATM and was given a form to fill out, then told to contact my bank as well, which also had me fill out a form detailing what happened. My account was credited the next day, with a notice that if their inquiry went against me I’d have to pay that back. After a month I got a letter basically saying “yup, you were stiffed” and that was the end of the matter.
So… once in about 30 years of using ATM’s. On the whole, not too bad.
Yes, I was temporarily stiffed by an ATM, in Amsterdam. It gave me no money, and it wouldn’t return my card. This was on a Saturday night, so there was no one to complain to . . . and I sure as hell wasn’t about to walk away with my card still in it. So I found a police officer, and he attacked the machine with his fist and a few other objects. It finally returned my card. He waited while I used the next ATM, which worked.
No stiffs for me, but I once had to use the ATM camera to document the fact that the ATM had just dispensed a bill that was obviously in close proximity to an exploding dye-pack! I was like, :eek: somebody is gonna call the cops on me when I try to spend this! So, I clearly displayed it for the camera, pointing at it with a expression on my face.
And yes, I’m familiar with what bills in proximity to an exploding dye-pack look like, because there was once a bank robbery around the corner from my work, and when I went out the back, there were dozens of stained bills blowing like tumbleweeds through the grass where the panicked bank robbers must have chucked a good portion of their haul. :eek:
About fifteen years ago, I was helping my niece move from a town about 150 miles from me to my town. Before leaving the town she was moving from, I stopped at the ATM of a bank that was strictly local to that area.
I tried to withdraw $40 but it didn’t spit out any cash. I tried again and got the same results. I then went to another ATM for the cash. I contacted my bank when I got home and they credited my account for the $80 pending investigation.
Like Broomstick, it was permanent a few days later.
Yes, by one bill ($20) at a gas station ATM, the little kiosk kind. The “fwif,fwif,fwif…” noise of the bills dispensing suddenly changed, and bills stopped appearing in the cradle. After a few bad-sounding fwifs, I reached in and dislodged the bills that were jamming up, and the process continued normally from there, but I was one bill short at the end. I was in a hurry, so I sucked it up.
I’ve had problems many times with international ATMs. My bank ends up showing a transaction as pending and puts a freeze on those funds for at least 30 days even though I have a receipt showing the transaction failed and no cash was dispensed.
I raise the issue with my bank and half the time they seem to be unable to cope with the idea of an international exchange rate. They insist it must have been a point of sale purchase because it comes to some odd figure like $322.56 and they are sure no cash machine dispenses change.
Yes, in Pattaya Beach, Thailand. By the time I got through to my bank in the USA the local Thai bank had posted a credit in the correct amount. From withdrawal to credit was maybe two days.
It happened to me about 30 years ago and the bank seemed a bit combative about it. I got it straightened out in a day but I was put off by the process.
Many, many years ago, I was using an ATM that dispensed fives and twenties. When I opened the drawer to take out the money, it was $5 short. Upon investigation, I found that there were two fives stuck in the crack that the money slid through into the space where the cash was dispensed. I took one of the fives (as I was entitled to) and left the other.
expression on my face.