Bank won't admit fault for ATM not giving cash

Briggsy.notts

I didn't know where else to put this so apologies in advance if it's in the wrong place.

My mum checked her statement from HSBC just before xmas and found that she had two lots of money taken from an ATM within 3 minutes. The first was £200 she tried to withdraw but the machine said she had insufficent funds and so wouldn't give her the money. She immediately put her card back in to try £100 instead which it gave her.

Her statement is showing that both amounts were withdrawn. She rang the bank and they said they would look into it. Yesterday she got a letter to say they had looked into the matter but according to their records and the ATM there was no shortfall and therefore they would not be refunding the money.

I'm trying to find out what we can do about this as I see this clearly as theft of £200 from a customer. It's not the first time we've had problems with HSBC and I'm trying to persuede both my parents to move accounts. Hope someone can help.

marc.faulkner

The first argument that springs to mind is, does your mum's debit card have a daily withdrawal limit?

Some cards are limited to £250 per day in ATM withdrawals, meaning the £300 that HSBC claim your mum withdrew could not be possilbe!

There's also the potential to get HSBC to review their CCTV footage of the ATM which should confirm that she was only given one lot of cash...

dunstonh

What HSBC have said is that they have balanced the machine and found there is not a difference. So, they have the situation where your mum says she has had £100. They say she has had £300 and the cashpoint balances to confirm that £300 was withdrawn.

Not only will they have that, they will also have the transactions on audit trail that will show that the £200 was either rejected or paid out (and from what hopper and what denominations).

If she is not satisfied with their response she should ask for a copy of the audit trail entries showing that the £200 was paid out and not rejected.

Briggsy.notts

Thank you. We have written to them to asking them to check the CCTV and that the tone of the letter was not helpful.

Bit confused about the audit trail thing. So if this says it paid out, which it clearly didn't, my mum will have lost the £200 and there is nothing we can do? By rejected do you mean the machine will have rejected as this is what happened.

dunstonh

Bit confused about the audit trail thing. So if this says it paid out, which it clearly didn't, my mum will have lost the £200 and there is nothing we can do? By rejected do you mean the machine will have rejected as this is what happened.

The cashpoints keep a printed record of every transaction. If a refusal is given it will record the refusal reason. If a failure occurs it will record the failure reason. If it pays out it will record what it paid out and which hopper(s) it paid out from (hopper or cassette or other internal name may apply. its where the notes are stored). £200 would typically be from two hoppers as it would involve £10 and £20 notes. So, it would show what it took from each. It would also show on the audit trail if the money was sucked back in again after a time out.

So, they have quite a lot of evidence available to them to see if a transaction went through or not.

The problem is that if the audit trail says £200 was paid out in say £5x20 and £10x10 notes and the machine is balancing in both £10 and £20 notes with the correct money then its going to be very hard to prove it otherwise. They will have an automatic disbelief as the majority of disputed cashpoint transactions turn out to be fraud. There is strong trust in the machines accuracy and that can make the staff mistrusting of those that say there is an error.

It is worth finding out what the maximum daily withdrawal limit is as well as many banks have it at £200. If that is the case for you mum, then how could she get £200 and then £100 after that.

Briggsy.notts

So basically any bank can screw over a customer just because of what an ATM says? I am so mad about this as we are struggling as it is so to lose £200 to a machine is crazy.

I have had a response with regards to CCTV which apparently can not be viewed by anyone until the Police are involved so I will have to investigate this avenue.

I have sent an email asking for a copy of the audit trail but I have a feeling they will say no to this for one reason or another. Not sure what else to do. If it was £20 I wouldn't be so bothered but we are talking about £200.

YorkshireBoy

What did they say about the daily withdrawal limit?

Briggsy.notts

Still waiting for find out. My mum thinks it is only £250 which would put the bank in the wrong but until they confirm I'm hold judgement.

YorkshireBoy

Briggsy.notts wrote: »

Still waiting for find out.

Why not ring them up and (innocently) ask? If they say £250, then make a note of the CSA's details etc and then hit HSBC with it. Or is that too easy?

My mum thinks it is only £250

Thinks? Doesn't it say in her paperwork/account T&C's?

gt94sss2

Briggsy.notts wrote: »

So basically any bank can screw over a customer just because of what an ATM says? I am so mad about this as we are struggling as it is so to lose £200 to a machine is crazy.

Not just because of what the machine says but also as they will have counted how much money was left in the machine matched the electronic records. Also, if the machine wasn't owned/run by HSBC, they will be relying on whoever does that for the information.

As for withdrawal limits, I seem to have a distant memory of HSBC lowering the daily withdrawal limit from £500 to £300/day some years ago - though only because I had to call them to ask for the old limit which resulted in them issuing me with a new debit card - as has been suggested its work checking or looking at the paperwork that came with your mothers card as I don't know if the same limit applies to all accounts or not..

Regards
Sunil

PROLIANT

I can see a scenario here, the ATM fails to pay out reporting an error, you go back and get £100, later somebody comes along and makes a withdrawal then the ATM pays the new customer his/her request + your £200, now the ATM will balance, an error may have occurred but the till balances so it is kind of catch 22.