ATM didn't give me long enough to retrieve the note. Company unhelpful.

epsilon4900

I used an ATM outside a supermarket when on holiday in Wales last week. The machine did not give me long enough to retrieve my cash and when I leaned forward to try to take it the gate mechanism closed and the money was lost to me. I was very angry and upset. I felt quite humiliated given that it was such a public area. The supermarket who at this point I will not name was very unhelpful. They refused to do anything and kept saying it was the card machine company I needed to reach but offered no help to do that. My bank has now refunded the cash but I feel that someone either the bank, the card machine company and / or the supermarket should offer me some kind of customer service gesture for the embarrassment and frankly humiliation I experienced last week.    I have never ever had this experience before and I have used ATMs all over the world for many decades.  The card machine company are saying they are sorry I had the experience but given my bank has now reimbursed me there is nothing further they can do. They quoted from the LINK regulations but I contend that they did or surely could not have followed them as the machine did not allow me sufficient time to obtain the money? They even used the words ....in a timely manner... but the machine did not do so surely? They are not interested in checking the machine to see if I am right. 

Interested to hear feedback and others experiences of this sort and what transpired and who / whom did what and so on?

If this marks a new trend eg reducing the time to obtain the cash then that is worrying and should be made public for us to consider openly.

Thanks.

FlorayG

There are too many serious problems in life to let this bother you. Your money was refunded, there was nothing to be embarrassed about, the supermarket have NO responsibility to help you with another company's machine and it seems they did apologise. What exactly are you complaining about?

la531983

Supermarkets dont operate the cash points. 

Ayr_Rage

You weren't quick enough, you'll know better next time.

Just laugh it off and get on with life, it's no big deal as you are not out of pocket.

Section62

epsilon4900 said:

I used an ATM outside a supermarket when on holiday in Wales last week. The machine did not give me long enough to retrieve my cash and when I leaned forward to try to take it the gate mechanism closed and the money was lost to me. I was very angry and upset. I felt quite humiliated given that it was such a public area. The supermarket who at this point I will not name was very unhelpful. They refused to do anything and kept saying it was the card machine company I needed to reach but offered no help to do that. My bank has now refunded the cash but I feel that someone either the bank, the card machine company and / or the supermarket should offer me some kind of customer service gesture for the embarrassment and frankly humiliation I experienced last week.    I have never ever had this experience before and I have used ATMs all over the world for many decades.  The card machine company are saying they are sorry I had the experience but given my bank has now reimbursed me there is nothing further they can do. They quoted from the LINK regulations but I contend that they did or surely could not have followed them as the machine did not allow me sufficient time to obtain the money? They even used the words ....in a timely manner... but the machine did not do so surely? They are not interested in checking the machine to see if I am right. 

Interested to hear feedback and others experiences of this sort and what transpired and who / whom did what and so on?

If this marks a new trend eg reducing the time to obtain the cash then that is worrying and should be made public for us to consider openly.

Thanks.

The machine protected you by swallowing the money when it had been left for longer than it was programmed to allow.  Unless you can prove there was a glitch, or the time allowed was too short for the average person, then there isn't a lot you can do.  If the reason it took you longer to get the cash was related to a disability of some kind then it might be worth pointing that out to the provider for them to consider whether a 'reasonable adjustment' might be required in future.

Reducing (rather than increasing) the time allowed makes sense from the point of view of risk to users, so I'd expect the trend to be less time rather than more time.

Maybe if you could explain a bit more about what happened and the amount of time you had... this is probably more productive than hoping to get compensation for something which was unfortunate, but didn't (from what you've posted) cause you a financial loss.

Nasqueron

epsilon4900 said:

I used an ATM outside a supermarket when on holiday in Wales last week. The machine did not give me long enough to retrieve my cash and when I leaned forward to try to take it the gate mechanism closed and the money was lost to me. I was very angry and upset. I felt quite humiliated given that it was such a public area. The supermarket who at this point I will not name was very unhelpful. They refused to do anything and kept saying it was the card machine company I needed to reach but offered no help to do that. My bank has now refunded the cash but I feel that someone either the bank, the card machine company and / or the supermarket should offer me some kind of customer service gesture for the embarrassment and frankly humiliation I experienced last week.    I have never ever had this experience before and I have used ATMs all over the world for many decades.  The card machine company are saying they are sorry I had the experience but given my bank has now reimbursed me there is nothing further they can do. They quoted from the LINK regulations but I contend that they did or surely could not have followed them as the machine did not allow me sufficient time to obtain the money? They even used the words ....in a timely manner... but the machine did not do so surely? They are not interested in checking the machine to see if I am right. 

Interested to hear feedback and others experiences of this sort and what transpired and who / whom did what and so on?

If this marks a new trend eg reducing the time to obtain the cash then that is worrying and should be made public for us to consider openly.

Thanks.

It is difficult to see how you should be given compensation from the supermarket for an ATM they don't operate, nor the machine provider because you were too slow to take the money out, money you were credited back with and suffered no loss. How were you "humiliated" when nobody around could see what you did if you were properly protecting the security area and most likely the only person paying any attention to what you did would be a thief? Move on with life and either have your hand ready by the cash dispenser, use a different ATM or even pay by card, banks like Chase and some credit card companies pay cashback for payments in this way.

epsilon4900

Thanks for these comments. Certainly food for thought here. I was / am interested in if anyone else has experienced this either at all or specifically recently. I am keen to detect if the amount of time ATMs give you to collect the money has been reduced stealthily. If others are having difficulty getting their money then it could point to a trend. If not then as some have said I will have to be even quicker next time. It is because I cannot prove one way or the other if the time has been reduced either intentionally or because of a glitch that I am asking the company to investigate further. They are resisting perhaps not surprisingly as of course they do not regard there as having been any big problem. They are not interested in what this experience felt like. Of course as the film Casablanca says this issue doesn't amount to a hill of beans given wars, famines, droughts and yesterdays power outage across Iberia it wasn't very pleasant last Wednesday. I posted in good faith especially to see others experiences.

MEM62

You didn't the cash but you were refunded - so you have no loss.  The events at the cashpoint are not cause for embarrassment or humiliation and, frankly, no organisation can be held responsible for your reaction to the situation.  Supermarkets do not operate these machines, they are just placed on their premises as a convenience,  so they are not is a position to offer you assistance beyond pointing out who the operator is.  There is nothing further that is due to you.   

epsilon4900

Thanks MEM62. I guess your feedback is what is called " tough love. " I thank you for it all the same and your time in offering it. I am still interested in if anyone else has had that experience and what happened.

epsilon4900

As an NB I was not suggesting that the Supermarket should reimburse me for the money that was withheld.
I was taken aback by their not offering any support or guidance about what had happened to me literally outside their door. 

Section62

epsilon4900 said:

Thanks for these comments. Certainly food for thought here. I was / am interested in if anyone else has experienced this either at all or specifically recently. I am keen to detect if the amount of time ATMs give you to collect the money has been reduced stealthily. If others are having difficulty getting their money then it could point to a trend. If not then as some have said I will have to be even quicker next time. It is because I cannot prove one way or the other if the time has been reduced either intentionally or because of a glitch that I am asking the company to investigate further. They are resisting perhaps not surprisingly as of course they do not regard there as having been any big problem. They are not interested in what this experience felt like. Of course as the film Casablanca says this issue doesn't amount to a hill of beans given wars, famines, droughts and yesterdays power outage across Iberia it wasn't very pleasant last Wednesday. I posted in good faith especially to see others experiences.

As I suggested in my post, this might be something happening to reduce the risk to users (the less time cash is left dangling out of a machine when the user walks off without taking it, the less chance someone else will grab it).

If it is, then the providers may be coy about admitting it, or even talking about it, because doing so might be seen as a security issue.  Criminals will work out for themselves that the money is left dangling for less time (it that really is the case), but the cash machine providers don't gain much by announcing it to them.