ATM not dispensing cash but cash debited from account

Money_Bags1447

HI
Hope someone can advise. At my local Sainsbury ATM I went to withdraw £500 using my RBS Visa card, done this many times before. On this occasion the ATM whirred for some time  then displayed a message that it was out of order (or words to that effect) returned my card and no money was dispensed. I waited a couple of minutes tried again this time ATM worked, I requested £100 and this was paid out as 10 x £10 notes with card returned OK. I checked my online RBS banking and found both £500 and £100 debited from my account. I telephoned RBS ( number on back of card) and she advised waiting 48 hours to see if it corrected itself, which it didn't. Phoned RBS again and they said they will raise the issue with the ATM provider to investigate and they will decide whether there is a mistake made or if I have to accept the loss of £500. I raised that my bank account is with RBS and not with the ATM provider but the impression I was given was RBS are shrugging their shoulders and want nothing to do with this.

Can some please advise what the bank responsibilities are and what next steps should be in the event of me losing out.
Thanks in advance.
Steve

Ebe_Scrooge

I don't think RBS are just shrugging it off.  This kind of thing does happen - not very often, but it's not unheard of.  Basically, RBS will ask the ATM owner to check the audit logs for that machine.  It's then a relatively simple matter to check the audit logs against the physical amount of cash remaining in the machine, and they should see a discrepancy of £500 - at which point you'll be refunded.  But RBS have to wait until the ATM owner has done the audit checks before they will refund you.

CurlySue2017

Ebe_Scrooge said:

I don't think RBS are just shrugging it off.  This kind of thing does happen - not very often, but it's not unheard of.  Basically, RBS will ask the ATM owner to check the audit logs for that machine.  It's then a relatively simple matter to check the audit logs against the physical amount of cash remaining in the machine, and they should see a discrepancy of £500 - at which point you'll be refunded.  But RBS have to wait until the ATM owner has done the audit checks before they will refund you.

^^This.

Same thing happened to me not too long ago allbeit not for that amount of cash!  It takes time for the banks to investigate as said above, but you will be refunded if the cash was not dispensed

comeandgo

You just have to hope that the next person who visited the ATM did not get your money as the audit will show cash in machine correct.

RobM99

Some ATMs have a CCTV, maybe that could help.

CurlySue2017

comeandgo said:

You just have to hope that the next person who visited the ATM did not get your money as the audit will show cash in machine correct.

OP says they waited by the machine for a few minutes and then successfully withdrew £100 following this failed transaction so I doubt this could have happened.

LABMAN

comeandgo said:

You just have to hope that the next person who visited the ATM did not get your money as the audit will show cash in machine correct.

The OP was the next person to use the ATM...read!

phillw

The ATM should have sensors that can tell where the money is, not sure the camera shows the drawer though as they are mostly aiming for faces.

COIAHLGW

Is it common though for £100 to be paid out all by £10 notes?  If the OP asked for £500 and all the machine had in it was tenners, would that be too many notes to be paid out all at once (50)?

MEM62

Money_Bags1447 said:

I raised that my bank account is with RBS and not with the ATM provider but the impression I was given was RBS are shrugging their shoulders and want nothing to do with this.
Can some please advise what the bank responsibilities are and what next steps should be in the event of me losing out.

I am sure that RBS will try to assist you in resolving this.  However, you need to bear in mind that is was not one of their machines involved - it was a third party machine that you chose to use, so I expect that RBS' responsibility is limited.  The machine owner / operator is the one you should be looking at for a resolution. 

CurlySue2017

I'm not sure the above is correct, however I cannot say for certain.  But during my recent experience of the same thing, the bank took care of it completely.  A good proportion of ATM's are third party machines so does that mean that to be "protected", you need to travel however many miles to get to a bank specific ATM?  I find that difficult to comprehend.