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An article relating to this blog post on Finextra:

Nationwide ATM hands out 'free' cash

Hundreds of people flocked to a Nationwide Building Society cash machine in Manchester yesterday after it started dispensing twice the amount of money requested.


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ATM Blunder Brings Back Memories...

It's amazing how many times this happens https://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=19530.  Presumably, the wrong notes have been loaded in the wrong hoppers...?

If so, this is easily rectified...at least it was when I worked in a branch.

Back in the old days (someone bring me my bathchair and a nice comfy blanket...), we used to have an ATM card linked to an account with a small amount of money in it.  When the machine was reloaded with cash, the last act of the staff member was to go outside and make a couple of wirthdrawals, in amounts that were certain to draw out the right combination of notes - for instance, did a request for £5 give me a £5 note, or a £10?  If it did, the machine was properly loaded.  If not, we had to go back into the machine and correct the error.  The money withdrawn was then paid back in to the account, ready for the next time we did the reload.

Does this not happen anymore?  If not, maybe they should resurrect the process.  If so, someone needs kicking for not doing it properly.

It's like the report in the paper the other day about the NHS checklist - do we have the right patient - check.  What operation are we doing - check.  List all the equipment at the start - check.  List it at the end - oops, something is missing....

Sometimes, the old, manual ways are the best...

Incidentally, when emptying the night safe, one great wheeze we used to do was, in a deep voice, shout out 'thank you' if someone put another box in the safe whilst we were still feeling around in it...  I think quite a few people jumped.

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Comments: (2)

John Dring
John Dring - Intel Network Services - Swindon 19 January, 2009, 09:29Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

That's funny.

Presumably these machines are 'labelled' in big letters (20's go here, 10's go here etc [they don't do fivers any more ;)] ).  So no doubt the risk is passed on to the '3rd party' who made the loading goof.  Either that, or the Bank simply claims on a insurance policy which you and I pay for in the first place.

We had this debate on the previous occasions this happened - but I am still curious if the bank reconciles the audit trail and rectifies the debit to those people's account retrospectively?

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 06 April, 2009, 06:52Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

Nationwide was one of the first 2 UK banks to outsource its ATM replenishments to security carriers (the other was Abbey) over 20 years ago. In my experience, banks rarely chase the end customer for the money back and claim compensation from the carrier who made the error when filling the ATM cassettes with the wrong denomination notes.

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