Last week, I had my grocery cash stuck in an ATM I used at Ayala Terraces. It was a BPI ATM beside Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. It wasn’t my first time to experience having my cash “eaten’ by an ATM but I was so furious because I felt I was too aggravated this time.
1. My budget was ruined. If you are a home maker cum budget keeper like me, you will know how budgeting has been so under rated.
2. I had to spend my precious time reporting the incident. The minute my cash didn’t appear, our instant reaction was to call using my mobile phone. But since I knew that this will take time, I thought going to the nearest BPI branch will be much helpful. But we were so wrong. When we got to the BPI branch, of course, we had to wait in line. It took a good 15 minutes before we were entertained by an officer. She got a form we had to fill up and asked us for the ATM’s TID. What the heck I didn’t know that they got that on ATMs these days! So my husband opted to go back to the machine we used and found nothing there! After all these troubles, the officer told us to just call their phone customer support and report the incident. I asked her if I can use their phone, and she said they don’t have one to spare!
I couldn’t use my phone since my bill was overdue and I don’t want my line severed by making more calls. I need to make a call free or else, I will feel that they already robbed me too much. Fortunately, Ayala Terraces’ lounge staff accommodated us to make our calls. My mood was a bit smoothed out because of that. We got comfortable chairs to make our call and they let us use the phone free for the longest time possible. Man, it took me an hour to be able to actually talk to BPI and Unionbank customer service representatives. I thought, is that the normal level of service these days, to wait for an hour to have your call answered?
3. They got my money for several days without any compensation. And so I thought, what if I didn’t have extra cash or any other money in another bank to get my cash from? What happens to people who are being paid too little, they depend their lives on their salary and the only happy day they got is their salary day? I had been an employee before and I know that feeling of “Yehey, it’s payday!”
What if your money was stuck in an ATM and you don’t have money left, even a single cent to pay for your fare to go back home? What if your money was supposed to be used for emergencies? Apparently, I don’t see any provisions here for “victims” like me. I just had to accept the fact that my money was lost till returned which fortunately for me, came back after 3 days. I’ve searched for similar incidences and saw that there are hundreds of stories out there who withdrew bigger amounts and never got their money back.
So, from my experiences, I took down some interesting reminders if you are withdrawing money from ATMs:
- Before withdrawing, check if the machine has a TID number (terminal id). That way, it will be easy for you to report when you didn’t get a receipt for your undispensed cash.
- As much as possible, withdraw from ATM of your bank, to avoid the hassle of reporting to 2 banks in case you didn’t get your money. Plus, you save from withdrawal charges too.
- If you are withdrawing all your money from your card, don’t withdraw it all at once. Divide it in half or try to withdraw a small amount first before the bigger half, just to try if the machine is working and dispensing.
- Try to inquire your balance first before withdrawing so you don’t get more than what your card has. Machine troubles start when they need to do more computation from the numbers you want to get from the numbers you have on your account.
- Report your loss immediately, as in within that hour. Note the exact time and exact location of the ATM plus the TID number. Banks process undispensed cash reports 5-10 working days so if you report asap, that day will already be counted.
- Don’t depend too much on your money from your ATM card. You always need to have that spare money stashed in your wallet to be able to go home or make calls if you don’t have a cellphone.
- Take note that there were many incidents that the bank did not return the money because they were not able to see your reported transaction from their database history. So be cautious when letting other persons withdraw from your card, the cases where it will be the person’s words against the banks’.
What about you? Did you have similar or worse experiences? As for me, there should be a petition here asking the banks to pay their ATM victims. After all, we pay transaction charges whenever we withdraw.
Here’s a petition, sign it if you agree that banks should compensate a percentage of the amount that got stuck in the ATM. Feel free to share it and let these banks hear the voices of all the frustrated people who had been their machines’ victims.
