ATM problem

My brother asked me to look into this for him as it happened at the weekend and he's away on holidays since. He used an ATM at a petrol station on Saturday to withdraw 200euro. He went through the procedure as normal and at the end the machine said to take card and then to take cash - but no money came out. He just presumed there was no cash in the machine and withdrew it again somewhere else. But when he checked his online banking the first transaction is there and his account is now down 200euro. How should he go about sorting this out? How can he prove he didn't actually get the money?

Same thing happened my dad. Call the bank and explain the situation. The banks obviously have a record of how much cash was in the machine and how much was withdrawn (and their books need to balance!!) If you report this and they discover an irregularity in their numbers they'll check it out and credit the account. May take a few days but it's usually not a big deal, it's a common occurrance.

There have been reports of a scam going on, where the person withdrawing cash is distracted and the cash taken. It sounds unlikely, but aparently they're very effective at it.

Could this have happened in your brother's case?

Thanks people. The bank have refunded the money so all is well again!

This is usually just a case of the ATM running out of cash. Some of them will shutdown in this situation (probably depending on the bank/ and maybe the type of ATM). There shouldn't be any need to contact your bank as the the (banks) system should automatically reconcile your account. It may take a day or so though - which may have been the case here.

IWONDER said:

This is usually just a case of the ATM running out of cash.

Click to expand...

Really? - It was my understanding that an ATM running out of cash should never result in a transaction going through an account. From my experience when you fill the ATM you tell it how much of each denomination you have loaded it with and the machine then tracks the number of notes left - if the ATM doesn't have the correct notes to complete the customer request then it gives the "..this machine can only dispense amounts in multiples of 50..." message and if no notes left the "..out of service..".

I would think that the issue with the OP was something else - possibly one of the mechanical feeders failed in the machine.

Anyway - minor points all I know but somebody might find it interesting