Cash Deposit ATM stole my money

Posted by Felix Okoli on Tuesday August 23, 2016 at 12:44:30:

As I must have mentioned many times, I no longer find it fashionable to enter banking halls and stand on the queue just to deposit money as I've gotten a bit addicted to cash deposit ATMs that are available at some Nigerian bank branches. Well, this was about to change yesterday as a cash deposit ATM literally stole my money without crediting my account.

Before I experienced this disappointment, I would never had thought that an ATM was capable of duping me or doing me 419 but now my eyes have opened wider but before I go further, I just want to tell you that some part of the money has been credited back to my account within 24 hrs only after I made an official complaint to the branch manager.

Well, on that particular day, I decided to deposit money at my bank using their cash deposit ATM as I normally do and sine I had a lot of cash to deposit, something told me to first try out with a few N500 notes that I didn't count just to see if the ATM was working because at times it goes offline and rejects the money. I guessed that the worse that could happen will be for the ATM to return my money when there is a hardware error and the transaction failed. Surprisingly, the ATM took my account number, phone number and my money and then returned a hardware error and yet didn't return the money. I was alarmed! No receipts were issued, no money refunded and I even got a feedback that the transaction failed.

I was a bit perplexed and the worst thing that came to my mind was that even if I complained and they wanted to rectify it, I didn't even know how much the ATM took from me because I was lazy to count it. I figured that it was something a bit above N15,000 but I didn't count it. Whenever you are going to the bank to deposit money either to the ATM or human being, it's always best to count your money first. It's probably safer to do the counting at home or the office rather than at the bank branch just to stay safe.

So, the cash deposit ATM in Nigerian which I was gradually falling in love with disappointed me and I just thanked God that I didn't put all the money at once especially the N1000 notes. So, it took a good portion of my Zik Notes which I modestly estimated to be N15000.

I've heard about ATMs wrongly debiting people's account in Nigeria as a result of network and transaction failures but I've never heard of cash deposit ATM's swallowing money without credit one's account or issuing a teller. It was like daylight robbery to me and I wasn't even sure how much it took from me. I jsut said to myself that "this is the last time I'm using these cash deposit ATMs".

I had to first call the security guy to complain and he gave me e register to fill and advised that I also complain at the bank's office which was nearby and I did by writing a letter to the manager and including the transaction details such as amount involved, account number and signature. I submitted that to the customer service person available and crossed my fingers that they'll rectify that soon.

I had to later wait in line at the banking hall for about 30 minutes just to deposit money as I no longer trusted the cash deposit ATMs in Nigeria.

It took about 24 hrs for me to get a transaction alert that my money has been credited to my account and I was a bit relieved and it seems that I'm having a change of heart. I may still keep using cash deposit ATMs but next time, I'm going to make sure that I count my money and try out smaller amounts of cash first to see if the ATM is working before trying to deposit bigger amounts.

I guess, if one would rather not want to avoid huge losses at such ATMs, it's best to only put in small amounts that one can afford to lose for multiple times but it takes more time.

With the way I see it, it seems that it's better to just deposit big amounts of money inside a traditional banking hall where you'd be given a receipt for it and only use cash deposit ATMs for small amounts of money. ATMs in Nigeria as so unreliable.