Halifax cash deposit machine ‘stole’ my £100

Omalicha

I went into a local Halifax branch to deposit some money which I had counted prior to leaving home and it was £1400 in £20 notes. This was cash that I had kept at home for emergencies and now needed. 

I put all the money in the cash machine and it returned some notes with a message that it only accepted 50 notes at a time. 

It then asked if I was happy to bank £1000 and I selected YES. 

I then proceeded to bank the returned cash and after counting it asked if I was happy to deposit £300. At that point alarm bells went off as it should be £400. So I chose NO and the funds were returned to me. I counted and it was £300. I was shocked and told the staff member what was happening. She said that perhaps I should not have accepted to deposit the £1000 when asked. Well, I didn’t suspect fowl play and had not counted the returned notes before accepting.

the staff member took my details and said she was going to deposit the £100 difference if at the end of the day the machine didn’t balance out. 

I didn’t receive any deposit at the end of the day so I went back the next day and she said the machine didn’t have any excess. 

This is one of those situations where I am 100% sure of the money I took to the bank. 

I’m wondering if anyone has been through a similar experience and what they did? 

I intend to log a formal complaint so it’s on record that something is not quite right with that cash deposit machine. Maybe someday, someone with find out what caused the error and I’ll have my £100 back. 

Flugelhorn

so it is saying you were 5 notes short? does seem quite a lot to be missing, can understand if 2 notes get stuck together etc but think the machine would probably recognise that 

tricky if they haven't found extra notes at the end of the day- must say I think if I was depositing that many notes I might get them to do it at the desk instead

sausage_time

A formal complaint is the way to proceed.  Just to be clear, did you confirm that £400 was returned after the first attempt?

Mr.Generous

I had it happen once but with one £20 note short paid in. The Halifax staff said they dont access or balance the machine, and that the company who it was contracted out to would contact me if it was over. Nobody ever contacted me, but Halifax credited my C/A with £20 with no explanantion (or appology) the next day.

I can't remember the exact circumstance, but I'd used cash in an effort to avoid a charge of £7 or £8 or something, and thought it had cost me £20 so I was pretty dissapointed.

MorningcoffeeIV

Omalicha said:

Well, I didn’t suspect fowl play and had not counted the returned notes before accepting.

And it wasn't even a poultry amount.

The_Unready

......and not chicken feed, either!

Nasqueron

Mr.Generous said:

I had it happen once but with one £20 note short paid in. The Halifax staff said they dont access or balance the machine, and that the company who it was contracted out to would contact me if it was over. Nobody ever contacted me, but Halifax credited my C/A with £20 with no explanantion (or appology) the next day.

I can't remember the exact circumstance, but I'd used cash in an effort to avoid a charge of £7 or £8 or something, and thought it had cost me £20 so I was pretty dissapointed.

I guess it depends on the machine location, I deposited two cheques in an envelope back in the day at an ATM in a Halifax branch (out of hours), only one got credited so I rang up and the staff physically checked the envelope, found they had missed one and did it and gave me £25 as an apology, think that was more than the cheque!

honeyslexy

This happened to me just yesterday, it's a large sum of money and they said they have no notes in the retainer. Did they refund you the missing amount in the end?, I'm getting really worried. 

retiredbanker1

honeyslexy said:

This happened to me just yesterday, it's a large sum of money and they said they have no notes in the retainer. Did they refund you the missing amount in the end?, I'm getting really worried. 

Did you ask for help when putting the notes in the machine?

toomuchinfo

This happened to me last year, I paid £500 into the machine inside the branch but the machine said £400. One of the staff was standing by me so she said that they couldn’t access the machine while the branch was open but that they would have to lock the doors, which they did. I had to leave the branch too but they phoned me a short while later to say that they had credited my account with the £100.

I don’t like using the machine now.

honeyslexy

@retiredbanker1 No, I didn't. I usually don't use the machine for large deposit but the cashier was closed, so I reluctantly used it. I put in all the notes at once and it returned some. I'm short £1,000. I went back to the Halifax branch today and they said there's nothing they can do as the machine recorded only the amount I was credited.