HELP!! Nationwide foreign transaction (charged twice!!!)

in desperate need of some help here. If anyone can advise us where to go with this, we would really appreciate.

In Dec the account holder used his Debit Visa card from Nationwide in Korea to make a cash withdrawal (since foreign withdrawals do not attract a fee with Nationwide). The first such withdrawal however was unsuccessfull with the card returned, but without cash or receipt. He than made another withdrawal a few hours later at another machine in the same location, and the cash was withdrawn successfully.

He immediately contacted Nationwide by contact form on their website, to inform them of a possible fraudulent operation and received an acknowledgement to that effect, stating it would be investigated. A week later, after requesting one of the now twice debited amount (showing on the online statements) to be credited back to his account, the bank informed him they will further investigate and debited one amount back.

In Feb the bank has contacted him by letter, containing what appears to be copies of the Visa Transaction Research Service, saying 'that the withdrawal was successful with the amount of £XXX.XX being dispensed on XX Dec at XX:XX local time'.

When contacting the Nationwide about this not being correct, they offered to look into this and to investigate the other transaction and credited the account with said sum 'as a measure of goodwill'.

He has now received the outcome of the second investigation, which is identical in result, and is being advised again that Nationwide will debit the said amount in the next 7 days.

I find this unbelievable and am trying to help him, but my background is rather limited when it comes to banking issues. Nationwide have included a copy of what appears to be a website called NTMS/NICE with a URL of http://nws.nicemoney.com/index.html which shows the card number and the amount. Apart from the numbers its all in Korean so does not mean much to us.

Further have they included copies from the Visa Transaction Research Service, which is three pages long and covers an awfull lot of numbers and codes, such as (these are the headings only):

General Transaction Data
CVV Transaction Data
PS2000 Transaction Data
Credit Transaction Data
Multi-Currency Data

Does he need a laywer or is there another way to get to bank to live up to the fact that there was an ATM that did not work as advertised. Having been to Korea myself, I am aware of the fact that not all machines dispense cash to foreign cards (despite showing the VISA logo).

The problem will be how to proof that no cash was ever dispensed in the first transaction. It has indeed happened to myself in the UK, but I never seen an amount being debited for such a malfunction.

If anyone can help us, it would be much appreciated.
Thanks
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Comments

  • MarkyMarkD
    MarkyMarkD Posts: 9,912
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    If push comes to shove, the machine owner should be able to produce a reconciliation report showing that they'd checked the amount of money which had actually left the machine tallied with the amount claimed to have been dispensed.

    That would clearly show up any discrepancies.

    But, what amount are you talking about? Talking about lawyers sounds way OTT.
  • oranabana
    oranabana Posts: 242
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    MarkyMark, the amount we are talking about here is 20% of his monthly income, or half what he paid for the flight there.
    How do you think we should proceed to get the bank to look at the ATM tally?! I could possible get a Korean friend in the UK to contact them - mmmh. So far we have sent an email to the Korean bank, but are awaiting a reply.

    thanks for the reply though!
  • MarkyMarkD
    MarkyMarkD Posts: 9,912
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    I doubt that you will get the Korean bank to even communicate with you directly. Your friend's contractual relationship is with his bank, Nationwide, not with the Korean bank.

    It's Nationwide's job to investigate (as they've sort of done, so far) and to ascertain who they believe.

    If (as appears to be the case) they believe the Korean bank, there is nothing much you can do apart from to escalate the complaint within Nationwide and then take it to the FOS if you get no joy.
  • oranabana
    oranabana Posts: 242
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    the only reason we emailed the Korean bank, is to establish if they have a video camera on the ATM, as that should be able to show that no cash was dispensed. As Korea is quite good a customer service we have some hope on getting a reply, but I hear what you saying.

    Has anyone else had any experience in getting their ATM discrepancy resolved?!
  • MarkyMarkD
    MarkyMarkD Posts: 9,912
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    Even if a camera is fitted on the ATM, its point is to show the person withdrawing the money, not the money itself. So it won't necessarily show anything useful IMHO.

    The Korean Bank has no way of knowing that you are who you claim you are, so it's unlikely (to me) that they'll tell you anything. In this country, another bank certainly wouldn't.
  • Biggles
    Biggles Posts: 8,209
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    I wonder why he immediately assumed the first (failed) transaction was fraudulent? I have had many failed transactions (as have you, as you say), for one reason or another, and have never thought that fraud may have been involved.

    You still haven't said how much was involved but if, as you infer, it was a sizeable amount, surely any second withdrawal the same day would have been rejected, as £300 is the daily maximum?
  • MarkyMarkD
    MarkyMarkD Posts: 9,912
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    The whole story is a bit odd.

    As Biggles states, it shouldn't be possible to withdraw two substantial amounts on the same day because of the daily withdrawal limit.

    And alleging fraud when what happened was most likely to merely be an accounting error is a bit OTT.

    Rather like suggesting the involvement of lawyers was a bit OTT.

    I would appreciate the original poster actually stating the amount of the two transactions so we don't have to keep guessing.
  • oranabana
    oranabana Posts: 242
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    the amount is just under GBP 150.00, which would mean that it should well be possible to withdraw two lots in one day. On the other hand I am not sure if Nationwide does limit it, or if its the foreign bank?!

    The word fraudulent was possibly not the correct wording (I am just the intermediary here, but I have asked again, and that was just the wording he used, in the first contact with Nationwide, when the two amounts appeared on the online statement).

    Judging what you guys are saying, this is a lost cause..?! huh
  • oranabana
    oranabana Posts: 242
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    MarkyMarkD wrote: »
    The Korean Bank has no way of knowing that you are who you claim you are

    we have included the relevant transaction data (as per copy fro Nationwide) including the card No, Name, date/time and amount, so I would imagine if they interested in sorting this out, they certrainly have something to go on
  • missile
    missile Posts: 11,684
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    oranabana wrote: »
    Has anyone else had any experience in getting their ATM discrepancy resolved?!
    When travelling through France, I used my CAM debit card in an ATM machine and got less cash than shown on the statement. I went into my branch and made a statement and filled in a form. Not very hopeful but to my astonishment, the missing money was credited to my account two weeks later.
    "A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." ~ Mahatma Gandhi
    Ride hard or stay home :iloveyou:
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