ATM dispute - £200 missing!!!

hayley11

On the 5th July my mum tried to take £100 out of her A&L account, the cash machine (RBS i think) she was using froze for about 5 minutes then spat her card back out, so she tried again, it did the same thing. She then went on to take £70 out of another cash machine on the same day. She doesn't really use that account much so when she got her statement at the end of July she was very shocked to see £200 had been taken out on the 5th July! So she got on to the bank and they said it'd be sorted within 48 hours, it's now been about 10 working days and they still haven't sorted it, she's rung a couple of times to chase them up and they keep putting it back. They're now saying it takes 15 working days.

She rang the financial ombudsman and they said they can't get involved until it's been going on for 8 weeks! Does anybody know legally how long the bank has to refund this?? Surely 15 working days is a total joke??

Luckily my mum can just about afford to be £200 down but if it was me i'd be absolutely knackered!!

Thanks xx

jonesMUFCforever

This is quite a common occurrence both with ATM's and on these boards.
Your mother has to get the investigation done by her own bank - most will require a written statement of what happened where, when and how etc.
They will then contact the reciprocal site at the other bank to see whether their machine balanced or not or was found to be faulty. If so all well and good she'll get her money back but it does take 2-3 weeks minimum.

If the other bank say that all was right at their end your mother may get a letter from her bank saying the machine dispensed the money and they consider the matter closed. If she gets this then it is time to raise a formal complaint and the matter will be looked at again.
In 99.9% of cases in my experience the money will be refunded, but in 0.01% of cases how shall I put it? - some people have a history of this happening to them (banks will always make notes on your file about this kind of thing)!

hayley11

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

This is quite a common occurrence both with ATM's and on these boards.
Your mother has to get the investigation done by her own bank - most will require a written statement of what happened where, when and how etc.
They will then contact the reciprocal site at the other bank to see whether their machine balanced or not or was found to be faulty. If so all well and good she'll get her money back but it does take 2-3 weeks minimum.

If the other bank say that all was right at their end your mother may get a letter from her bank saying the machine dispensed the money and they consider the matter closed. If she gets this then it is time to raise a formal complaint and the matter will be looked at again.
In 99.9% of cases in my experience the money will be refunded, but in 0.01% of cases how shall I put it? - some people have a history of this happening to them (banks will always make notes on your file about this kind of thing)!

Thanks, well hopefully it'll be sorted soon enough

celtic_charmer

I had a similar problem in a shop. I bought some furniture and paid for it but the machine crashed half way through (it was in the middle of a thunder storm) and didn't complete the transaction (allegedly). We tried again - and again it didn't go through (problems with the Barclay's system). Third time we were lucky.

However, checking my balance the following day I found that they'd taken the amount out 3 times. After picking myself up off the floor (the transaction was for £387 so x 3 and you can understand my panic) I went straight into my branch (Woolwich as then was) who were brilliant and got it sorted there and then. The money was back in my account by the end of the week and no charges, letters or other problems.

My brother had a similar problem with NatWest and it caused him all sorts of trouble.

Maybe I'm showing my age here, but I honestly don't think I had the trouble because it was a bank where the manager knew most of the customers and were able to help, whereas now you're nothing but a number and the branch staff have to follow so many different procedures etc that they can't help you even when they want to. Ah - the good old days!