This is a geographic-specific observation. I’ve never seen a British ATM that only dispenses one denomination - when they do, there’s an on-screen apology for the lack of other notes.
This is a geographic-specific observation. I’ve never seen a British ATM that only dispenses one denomination - when they do, there’s an on-screen apology for the lack of other notes.
I bet you 13 100-dollar bills and 5 singles that I can count $1305 without needing a five-dollar bill to make it add up correctly.
Perhaps somewhere there is an ATM that fits your description. In my experience working at a bank, I have never seen an ATM as you describe.
Bills are not placed into individual slots. This would be insane. Instead, bills are placed on end in one or more cannisters that are placed inside of the machines. A very busy ATM in a hight traffic (secure) area could reasonably contain up to five thousand individual bills. There are lots and lots of different ATMs out there, some of which have slightly different technology, but the basic idea is the same.
Whether or not an ATM dispenses more than one denomination is usually a business decision on the part of the bank, not a function of the ATM itself. Dispensing only one denomination will obviously prevent employees from mixing up cannisters containing different denominations, for example. I have noticed that most of the ATMs I use only dispense twenties. When I was a poor college student, though, I saw lots of machines that dispensed ones.
I meant to say fives. Fives. I guess if I’d have to be really poor for singles to make sense.
All over Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (and, as far as I know, the rest of the province) there are machines that only dispense twenty dollar bills. In fact, I’ve never seen a machine that did anything else.
Well, my ATM didn’t spit out hundreds in twenties, it swallowed my paycheck!
I deposited a paycheck in the bank machine, typed in the amount, inserted the check, and got my receipt. Then, the deposit never appeared in my balance as I watched and watched my account for it to be credited!!! It were as if the check vanished!
As it turns out, my bank wouldn’t believe me because the receipt cannot prove I put a check for that amount into the machine. As for the machine balancing, it turns out the bank introduced a new optical, high-speed scanner to record all checks. Well, the system has a flaw as my check was NOT detected by this automated process!
I had to go beg my employer to give me the returned check as proof…even though it was the bank’s error! And, the bank did nothing to help me trace the problem until I gave them my proof!
What a nightmare that was! Sheesh! - Jinx :rolleyes:
I used to be the person to stock and balance ATM’s and they make mistakes far more often than you’d think. The machine keeps very good and very detailed records about everything and should the machine come up wrong we were able to look at the log and see who’s transaction it botched.
We always had proof that you were dispensed the wrong amount of money. So even if the machine managed to screw it self up just right to get back into balance we could still give you your money. As far as giving out too much money, it happens, we know exactly who you are but the cost and logistics of fighting you for it (especially if you didn’t belong to our bank) made it too much of a hassle to do.
The only think I don’t know is how the machine can know its giving out too much money, and yet still give it out. You’d think that if it were smart enough to know it screwed up, it would be smart enough not to do it in the first place.
Oh well.
Okay, got me there. It was a long time ago, and maybe it was different numbers (maybe she got $1301 and I didn’t give her any singles). Even so, she wasn’t quick enough to come up with what you said.
My ATM error story: I was once in line behind a guy who got a $100 bill mixed in with his stack of twenties at the ATM (at a bank where they only dispense twenties). He alerted the management while I hurriedly tried my luck (and failed).
I was shorted one noye once. I had to go into the bank, give them the notes I received so they could reverse the whole transaction and then go and do the withdrawal again. Took quite a while involving phone calls and stuff.
Uh, not in at least one brand I’m familiar with. In the ones I’ve seen, there’s basically just a stack of currency in a plastic tray and a machine called a picker draws from that.
My story: I saw an ATM where the armored car guys had screwed it up when they replenished the money. Due to some pins being set wrong, the machine believed its container full of $20 bills was full of $2 bills.
Not to worry! It wasn’t like that long. Word got around the neighborhood, and the community worked hard to fix the armored car guys’ mistake.
Thing was out of cash in under 12 hours. I tried to get the store that it was in to just disconnect the power until it could get fixed, but when I called up it was quite literally run by a pair of gentlemen who could simply not understand a word of my English.
“Call bock tomorrow. Manager be here.”
No, they aren’t perfect.
A couple of years ago the bank called - they claimed one of my deposit envelopes “was empty”.
I told them to check again and described the deposit (fortunately, a small check from a relative).
They “found” the check and called me back.
Their excuse: Some of the deposit envelopes get stuck together sitting outside in a damp dispenser. So the person’s deposit ahead of mine probably had a second envlope stuck to it. Which came off and was in the pathway when I made my deposit, and it got my timestamp.
So, while I still use deposits, I pre-stamp a bunch of dry envelopes to use, each rubber stamped with my name and account no.
As recently as a year ago, my credit union’s ATM would still dispense 10’s. They’ve stopped now, and, as in Saskatchewan (that’s hell to type by the way; have you considered changing your provinces name to North Montana?), I only see ATMs that give out 20’s anymore.
American ATMS do spit out different denominations. Try the ones in Las Vegas, where they want people with less than $20 to their name to still be able to gamble.
I suppose you could call it Saskabush, if you liked ;).
As others have noted, this isn’t how an ATM is designed. I’ve seen the inside of only a couple, but in my experience, there is simply a large stack of bills in a hopper. (Or stacks, in the case of machines which dispense multiple denominations.) If the guy servicing an ATM had to put a single bill in a single slot/tray, it would take an eternity to restock an ATM. Many of the busiest machines, when fully stocked, contain over twenty-thousand dollars. If all that’s in twenties, you’d need a thousand slots/trays. Besides the restocking time, those thousand trays would each be a potential mechanical failure point, would require far too much space, would make an ATM very costly, and provide way too much potential for untraceable human error.
Some years back, one of the bills the ATM was trying to dispense slipped down into the bowels of the machine before it could come out into my waiting hand. I can’t remember if I called the bank or the bank called me the following Monday, but they knew *exactly * who had been shorted and I had no problem in getting my money. I’m surprised that others have had different experiences.
ATMs have a number of different error codes they can kick out in the case of a failed transaction.
The vast majority of mechanical failures ARE detected by the ATM.
Some banks have a policy of calling pre-emptively when they think there’s a problem, like Oy! discovered.
Some banks are probably just lazy or disorganized.
Also, some ATMs are non-bank, and their owners and operators don’t know who you are. They may be able to contact your issuing bank and credit the account, but your issuing bank may or may not credit you in a timely fashion, and may or may not be graceful in informing you of the refund.
In addition, certain ATM owners/network drivers have a policy that while they WILL automatically credit you in the case of a known dispense failure, in the case of a “not sure what happenned” they will ignore the situation until you file a complaint. These operators tend to cite certain banking regulatory/customary agreements that this is the “proper” way to handle things. Not being a bank compliance officer, I have no idea how right they are.
In the case of “not sure what happenned”, which is exceedingly rare, you will likely not get your money until the machine is next balanced. This may take a week or so.
In closing, the rate of ATM “failure to dispense” caused by mechanical failure is… very, very low. I’m not certain of the exact number, but I calculated once that you would have to live a couple of lifetimes for it to happen to you.
I think ATM’s are probably more accurate nowadays, but way back in the late 70’s and early 80’s when they were relatively new they frequently came up out of balance. I was an operations officer at a bank at the time and used to say that if we had human tellers who made the same number of mistakes as the ATMs they’d be relieved of their employment. But since the blasted machines cost around $50K, we were stuck with them. Also, the nature of the transaction records made is difficult to track down who got shorted or overed but obviously we had to do it. “Overed” is a word, right?
I avoid ATMs that aren’t bank-owned after a friend of mine received NO cash on her $200 withdrawal from one of those independent machines you see in convenience stores and service stations. It took my friend months to get her money from those guys.