Reader Keith tried to get $120 from a downtown NYC Chase ATM, but the money door never opened. When he went inside to report the malfunction, the teller told him to go outside and wait. Keith thought he was waiting for someone to come fix the ATM or take his personal information. It turns out that he was just being ignored.
Yesterday, I went into a downtown NY Chase branch. I went to the ATM, asked for $120 and the door that dispenses the money never opened.
I went into the bank and told a teller what had happened and was instructed to stand by the machine.
When no teller came out to meet me after standing there like an idiot for 10 minutes, I went back in and asked the teller when someone was coming out. She said, oh – the money didn’t come out YET? She never mentioned me to anyone.
Now I’m instructed to go to the customer service counter where they told me the machine has been doing this all week. My question as to why it’s still in service was met with blank stares until one person said they didn’t have the authority to do take it offline.
Then I’m told that (even though they know it’s a problem) I can’t get the money back for 24 to 48 hours.
I asked to see a manager and was told the same story.
As she said that, another man came in and said that he lost $200 in the SAME atm.
I politely told the manager that if one more person comes in here with the same story, I would send an e-mail to the Attorney General, FDIC, Fed. Reserve, BBB and local news. It was astounding how quickly the proper motivation was able to get the machine turned off and the money back into my account.
I have to wonder, if I didn’t stand up for myself – just how many people would be out $$$ for 48 hours (and possible more)?
Good for you, Keith. It’s a good thing you came along. All the customers who didn’t get screwed by that ATM because you took the time to stand up to Chase owe you a hug.
(Photo: epicharmus )
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@jsttheman:
I’m sorry, but “good faith” would have to come before the customer has no recourse but to threaten calls to the FDIC and the Attorney General.
The bank’s staff told him there was nothing they could do, remember? Then they suddenly have the power to do something once they could be in trouble for their business practices? No amount of “whining” on the part of any customer can imbue a bank’s staff with the heretofore ‘impossible’ ability to return lost funds to said customer’s account; either they had the ability all along, or they didn’t.
The fact that the bank’s staff evidently lacked the presence of mind to alert its customers that the ATM in question had been doing this “all week” by labeling it ‘out of order’ in some way shape or form only exacerbates the egregious nature of this particular bank’s disinterest in their customers’ satisfaction.
Also, the scenarios you describe involving the “immediate” crediting of the customer’s account had he only called the customer service line as he was instructed, or else the crediting of his account while the transaction was under investigation, simply do not jibe with most banks’ standard business practices. Most banks will never assume the burden of crediting a customer in a show of good faith; when it comes to these circumstances, a bank will be quick to remind you that they are in the business of making money, above and beyond all else. I don’t know anyone who has had a dispute with a bank who was ever given the benefit of the doubt. I’m betting the same can be said for any number of people who participate in the discussions here on The Consumerist, as well as for most anyone out there in the ‘real world’.
@ClankBoomSteam: First off. All he was doing was throwing out threats. What is the FDIC going to do? Nothing. 2nd. There is nothing that he can do. The client must call customer service. Now, in this instance the manager just refunded the money back to the client and that was the end of it. However, this probably caused a loss for that particular branch. Each branch is ran like a store. Income and expenses. Branch managers have to account for this. It is not unreasonable for the branch manager to expect that this person is lying. He gave the money back to the client on GOOD FAITH that the client was telling the truth. There is doubtful there is anyway that the branch is going to recoup that 120 bucks that was given back to the client.
3rd. My bank (Bank of America) credited my account a temporarily deposit when they were researching my fraud claim. Seems to me that it is good faith from one of the largest banks in the industry.
I understand that this needs to be looked at the consumers point of view and it does suck that he didn’t get his money right away and they handled it bad but the thing is that people can’t expect to whine and get their way.
@jsttheman: What would the FDIC do? That’s up to them. Assuming they would do nothing is on you, I’m afraid.
“The client must call customer service”? Uh, no. He clearly did not have to do so, or else this article would have a completely different ending, would it not?
As for the branch “recouping” the $120 they gave the customer, they didn’t lose it in the first place — it’s still in their ATM, which makes their till (to use your ‘store’ analogy) even, not under.
Your experience may have been good with BofA, however I can tell you my own experience with them was the exact opposite: most everyone I dealt with there was rude, cranky and unwilling to give an inch for any sort of dispute, great or small. And again, I’m willing to bet most of us here at The Consumerist have had similar experiences. I’d argue that your experience in disputes such as this with banks is the exception, not the rule.
Finally, I have to take issue with your calling the customer’s approach “whining”. Calling it “whining” serves to weaken him as a character here, portraying him in a negative light by using a word with in-built negative connotations, and it’s an invalid form of argument.
His situation was, in your own words, “handled bad”, and he stood up for himself. If the bank’s staff had done its job in the first place by not allowing people to use their broken ATM “all week”, he wouldn’t have had to fight to get his money back in the first place, would he? As such, the entire scenario was indisputably the bank’s fault, and this customer knew it. He had been wronged by his bank, and he fought back; no more no less.
This guy also had some knowledge they were probably hoping he didn’t have, like knowing exactly what 3 organizations would be very interested in the BS scheme they were trying to pull and acting incompetent. People seem to cooperate quickly when you go above their heads when they expect you to be a sheep about their screw up. Good for you Keith!
i was recently in NYC on my dream holiday. I used my Australian (But US $) travel card at BOA to withdraw $500. i was shorted $50, and when i went into the bank and explained he situation (i was leaving the next day for a 2 week tour of washinton, philly, toronto, montreal and quebec) the manager gave me $50 out the till.
@ClankBoomSteam: Ok. I understand where you are coming from but the exact wording is
“Then I’m told that (even though they know it’s a problem) I can’t get the money back for 24 to 48 hours.
I asked to see a manager and was told the same story. “
What was the story? Obviously there is no dialog for us to review but if he’s going to get his money back in 24 to 48 hours I can almost promise you that it’s going to be through customer service, not the branch. Even if in a perfect world it could be handled through the branch, why couldn’t the client accept the fact that it would take 24 to 48 hours. If it takes that long for everyone else, why can’t it take that long for him?
You are right. I shouldn’t use the word whine. I should use the word threaten. That’s exactly what he did. I think we are debating about two separate things. I know this was the banks fault that the machine malfunctioned and the manager didn’t handle it the best but there should be no reason to expect that the client should get back his money right that instance when no one but the client saw that his money was taken by the machine.
You would be surprised how much power branch managers actually have. Usually branches aren’t allowed to take their ATM’s offline without going through a series of protocols.
The Consumerist thrives off of people who complain. My experience at Bank of America is probably shared by others. Banks aren’t out to get people. They aren’t the bad guys. The employees are the ones who misrepresent the banks. All banks and any company care about is customer service but it’s the employees jobs to make sure that the message gets portrayed back to the customers.
I work at a Chase branch. Our ATMs are both broken – we call tech support every day – they come out and “fix” the machines – and the next day they are still broken. Customers lose money, deposits, debit cards – and there is nothing I can do but get yelled at. Fricking ridiculous.
@jsttheman:
Okay, I think I’ve found the sticking point, here:
The question is not “why couldn’t the client accept the fact that it would take 24 to 48 hours. If it takes that long for everyone else, why can’t it take that long for him?”.
The question is “why should this customer have to wait at all (let alone as much as 48 hours) for the money that he was already trying to withdraw right then and there?”
What if the customer was withdrawing the last of his money for something of extreme importance (as in, food/medicine/rent, etc.)? What if 24-48 hours is far too long of a wait for whatever it is that the customer was intending to spend the money on? My point is that it should always be assumed by the bank that the money being withdrawn by a customer is money they need — as in, immediately.
As far as the banks not being the Bad Guys here (and the employees being the ones who misrepresent the banks), what is a bank but the people who work in it? If a bank is staffed by bad employees, that bank is effectively a bad one, to my mind. I don’t care what the public face of a given banking institution may be, bad service is bad service. Without referencing the service one receives from a bank, how do you propose we gauge one as ‘good’ or ‘bad’?
Well, an aside to the story, and the inverse.. But just to remind folks, we have it bad with banks like BoA and such, but not THAT bad:
[www.bjreview.com.cn]
@klendathu9000, most banks DO keep cash at the teller window. They do limit the amount of cash any teller is allowed to have in their drawer at any time. That’s one reason bank robbery is such a stupid way to make money; you’re just not going to get much cash. I’d think a bank with a “no cash” policy is actually running the risk of its tellers getting hurt.
Perhaps you’re thinking of bank branches that are “service centers” rather than actual branches that handle money?
@ceejeemcbeegee (AKA!): there’s always one
@ClankBoomSteam: Hey, I may not like how long it takes either but rules are rules. The fact is that this person believed that he is better than the rest of us and that rules don’t apply to him.
What is any company that isn’t their employees? The thing is that can you screen for employees having a bad day? No, you can not. Yes, you will base your experience with that store off the employees but the fact is that you need to look at the bigger picture.
@jsttheman:
You’re missing the point: He wasn’t just believing that he was “better than the rest of us and that rules don’t apply to him” in a vacuum, he was reacting to someone else ‘breaking the rules’ by allowing customer after customer to use their broken equipment “all week” (their words).
They could have prevented the entire affair by keeping him from using the broken ATM, but instead they allowed him to lose $120 of his own money for up to 48 hours (assuming that they weren’t coming up on a weekend, I’d like to point out).
It was all the bank’s fault, and it was entirely due to their lazy inattentiveness. It’s not like this was some strange event that might have been caused by a variety of possible catalysts, it was obvious what was going on, and the bank knew immediately what had happened to the guy — there was no investigation necessary.
What should have happened in the first place was a simple verification of his identity, followed by an immediate payout of the contentious $120. Instead, the bank’s staff opted to employ a ruse (“there’s nothing we can do”), which left them open to the embarrassment they caused themselves when the customer called their bluff and said the magic words that scared them into action: “I’ll rat you out to the people who can cause you to have a very bad day”.
I’m sorry that you disagree, I really am. But no amount of reiterating that the customer was a “whiner”, or that he thought that the “rules didn’t apply” to him, or that he thought he was “better than the rest of us” changes the fact that the bank effectively stole his money by not protecting him from their faulty ATMs, which they knew were faulty in the first place. That’s the end of it.
Chase: Owned by thieves, so you can’t expect much good.
If people knew the actual banking practices and their background, they wouldn’t be a bit surprised by the underhandedness of banks.
Here’s what happened to me 2 days ago…I wanted to withdraw $400 from a Chase ATM and i got almost all the way through the process and it gave me a receipt that said “transaction denied”. So i tried it 3 more times,all with the same results. I went inside the bank to see if they were having problems with their ATM and was told there were no problems and i should call the 1-866 # on the back of my card and have customer service help me. I thought, ok, maybe something is up with my card. So after getting a hold of a customer service agent, she wanted me to go back to the ATM and “walk me through” the process of withdrawing money. I went through the whole process again and then the machine starting beeping really loud and my money DID come out of the little slot. I was still on the phone with CS and told her looks like it worked this time. I went to grab the money and it the sucked it back in the machine! I just stood there stunned and told the girl on the phone what just happened! She told me to go back inside th ebnk and tell them what just happened. I was so upset…never had a ATM take my money back! After telling the woman inside the bank what happened, she sternly told me that “for security reasons” the machine would take back the money after so many seconds to prevent it from being left out it the open…and i should have been paying attention and not talking on my phone! I was SO angry at the point i told her i was on the phone with their customer service agent TRYING to get their ATM to work correctly. So she gave me a 1-800 # to call “to report a dispute”. This “dispute” CS rep told me she would file a dispute claim and i would have to check my account in 15 calendar days to see if the money was credited to my account. I went back in to the bank, told them what i was told….and left my phone # for them to call me. I said that their ATM machine would be $400 over and i wanted my money ASAP. So the next day i called them to see if they had any news on my missing money and i was told the ATM balanced out for the day….it was not over $400! I was like…no way….and they told me maybe the $400 was credited to my account (it wasn’t and still has not). They told me there was nothing they could do. Now i am waiting for my “dispute” decision. I expected more for Chase, especially dealing with this in person, face to face with them. They act like it’s no big deal to them and are not helpful at all. It was their ATM right outside of their building that ate my money and “there’s nothing they could do”. Wow..i’m SO pissed off right now….what happened to customer service and helping the customer?