Is the ATM the next thing to go HSBC.
This rant is not about HSBC in particular, it’s about the system and how unfair things can be.
Especially at the moment when money is tight and £150 at the end of the month can make or break you.
I thought I was going crazy. I took out £150 from the ATM at my local Morrison’s supermarket. Well I tried to. The ATM timed out in the middle of the process and didn’t dispense the cash. It was my last £150 before payday for my grocery shop.
I am one of those people who likes to use cash. I spend less when I have to hand over real money instead of just using my debit card. I also owed someone some money I’d borrowed and needed to repay it.
When I tried a different ATM I got a message of insufficient funds. I thought I was going mad. Fortunately I have a rainy day, only in an emergency small fund I was able to borrow from but I completely understand not every one has this.
When I checked my banking app it said I had taken two £150 payments, not one. So I deduced the first ATM had completed the transaction without dispensing any money.
This snoop is to warn banking customers what may happen if this happens to you.
I called HSBC immediately and got put through to the disputes team who logged the call.
Here’s what happened.
My money would temporarily be returned in 4 days if the bank decided I had a claim, this was not guaranteed and the money may be recalled if my dispute was not resolved in my favour.
I was like what? I need that money now. I don’t get paid for three days. Didn’t matter, the bank told me there is a wave of people taking money from ATMs and then saying the machine didn’t dispense the cash. ATMs are owned and operated by independents, nothing to do with the bank I was informed so they would have to investigate, check local CCTV I was told and decide if I was telling the truth. I asked if they would give me a reference number or an email, anything to prove I had reported the incident. No they said just a verbal assurance the dispute was logged on their system and I’d have an answer, not necessarily resolution, within 21 days.
It got me thinking about how many families are on the breadline and how a faulty ATM machine could cause havoc like this, how much £150 is to an individual but nothing to a massive bank like HSBC.
I have been checking my account daily to see if the funds have been returned even temporarily, tomorrow is day four and so far nothing.
I am confident I will get my money back eventually but with crime on the rise, high street bank branches disappearing and access to cash becoming increasingly difficult, I do wonder for how much longer we’ll have the use of the few remaining ATMS. The reason I went to Morrisons in the first place, it’s one of the only ATMS in my area where you can get cash for free, all the convenient ones at petrol stations charge a fee to use.
FYI if my money isn’t returned by HSBC my only course of action is to file a claim with the Financial Ombudsman which can take up to 6 months to be looked into.
I’ve added a money saving expert link below. It’s clear from further investigation I am not the only person this has happened to and the experiences of other people sound exactly the same but resolution hasn’t been forthcoming in a lot of cases.
For reference the images are not of the faulty ATM at my local Morrisons, I didn’t snap pictures when it happened. These images I took when I experienced another incident with a faulty ATM machine a few months ago.
Interest rates in building societies are so low now and with risk averse banks putting themselves above the needs of customers, I am questioning the service they actually offer and wondering if returning to gold and cash under the bed would be a better system. Food for thought in a digital age.