Waitrose Cash Machine/Nat West Bank?

[frances1p]

DAYLIGHT ROBBERY BY ............... BANK!!!!???

This is a bit of an usual situation and wasn't sure if I had posted in the right place? But it certainly relates to Nat West Bank & Waitrose Supermarket Cash Machine.
This is a situation my son finds himself in currently, which I think is totally out of order (if you will pardon the pun!)

My son, is age 20 and is currently studying at College p/t and relys on Disability Benefits currently, to pay his way (rent, shopping etc etc).

Anyway, last week on the day his Disability Payment was paid into his bank account, he had gone along to Waitrose Supermarket to use the Stores Cashpoint Machine.

He requested a cash withdrawal of £200.00, the machine went through the motions, but at the point where a machine normally ejects the cash amount requested, it rather abruptly went into 'suction mode' instead of eject and took the cash back - in its entirity!
At this point, I believe a message displayed on the machine, saying it was not sure how much money it was giving out, so took the cash back - see vendor. (or words to that effect!)
My son was shocked by this situation and immediately approached the Store Personnel (Customer Service) and on checking the machine, they confirmed it was faulty etc, took my sons details and said unfortunately they were unable to issue the cash to him directly and would be paid back into his account - but this transaction would take 4 working days!) This happened on Friday 14 May, taking us up to today (ie: Mon-Thurs being the 4 working days!).
He has found it difficult to manage and has avoided household bills and today I found out he has not even had any gas at home for the past week, food minimal and his daughters maintenance payment 'unpaid~!) (shes only 18mths old!)
To my horror (even worse for him!) he phoned me to say he went to the bank today to sort his money out and they told him that it would be 10 days not 4!
I was gobsmacked!! He is very distressed by all of this, quite rightly - he is totally broke now and has already borrowed monies. So now no gas or food at home and likely his electricity will go this weekend.
This does not seem acceptable practice to me, its like walking along the road with a bundle of cash in your hand, somebody grabs it and says - 'no I am not going to give it back to you for 10 days +' (ok - foolish thing to do maybe and unlikely you'd get it back at all!) but I am sure you get my gist?

ANY HELP ADVICE SUGGESTIONS, MOST WELCOME. THIS IS TERRIBLE THERE MUST BE SOMETHING HE CAN DO. (SOMETHING A LITTLE MORE EFFECTIVE THAN THE "COMPLAINT" ROUTE, AS WE ALL KNOW THIS IS RIDDLED WITH BEURACRATIC RED TAPE & LIKELY TO TAKE WEEKS/MONTHS TO BE DEALT WITH)
I AM HOPING TO BE ABLE TO TAKE SOME IMMEDIATE AND DECISIVE ACTION, FORCING THE BANK TO RETURN THE MONEY HE IS RIGHTLY OWED!!!!
THANKS I AM COUNTING ON YOU !!!

[natweststaffmember]

Re: Waitrose Cash Machine/Nat West Bank?

It's much worse than that cos that timescale is wrong. He would have had to filled in an ATM dispute form and then the 10 working days for a response is from the date that the form reaches the correct department. It can take up to a month for it to be re credited to the account......wished you'd asked me earlier on this one .

[frances1p]

Re: Waitrose Cash Machine/Nat West Bank?

Thanks for your response. Though not quite what I had been hoping for!

Are you saying then, thats ok for them to do that ? Surely not? How can they take somebodys money, no in fact 'Public Funding' that has been allocated to a person in need (disability) and expect them to wait 10 days to one month, without question???

Please explain if you can, I dont understand how that is ok - just because its a bank, they are still taking somebodys money away from them without consent. If you or I took the cash, we would be in Court!!?

Sorry to be a pain, but I need to justify it to myself and then to my son,in a way that he might possibly understand??? So far, I just dont get it???!!

Thanks appreciate any help you can give.

:beagle:

[WendyB]

Re: Waitrose Cash Machine/Nat West Bank?

Well, to be honest, they are not taking his money without nconsent are they? The machine was faulty and grabbed his money back. They would have to follow a process of onfirming that he had not had his money, this would be done when the machine was balanced and found to have more cash in than it should have. This money could belong to any customer that had used the machine, so they would have to ascertain which customer it was. By rights, your son should have gone to Natwest straight away (or as soon as possible) and filled in a form (the one Nattie mentioned above) to register his complaint. The bank then checks out the machine etc etc and when its sorted credits the money back to the account. If its not a Natwest cash machine this could take a bit longer. The same thing happened to me, and I was told that it could be up to 6 weeks before I got my money back, but in the end it only took a few days. And in all fairness it was my own fault as I had taken my card out and forgotten to take the money!!

I am in no way a champion of Natwest (as you will see from my many run-ins with them) but obviously they can't just credit money back to someone's account at the drop of a hat, with no verification, otherwise it would be a licence for the more unscrupulous amongst us to print money, wouldn't it?.

Sorry if this isn't what you wanted to hear. But nothing is perfect, all machiniery will malfunction from time to time, this incident is just unfortunate that it happened to your son. Sorry.

[natweststaffmember]

Re: Waitrose Cash Machine/Nat West Bank?

To be honest, WendyB has summed up exactly why. The journal roll of the machine will on the journal roll print the card number and the amount as well so unfortunately, although the process is slow, it will be recredited. With regards to your initial information from Waitrose, was surprisingly inaccurate. Any rational person would have told someone to go and speak to their bank since I would expect that Waitrose staff would have absolutely no access to the ATM machine. I do think that perhaps a complaint should be made to Waitrose head office based on the fact that the information he was given was so inaccurate. Taking your son's details was irrelevant to solving the problem.

[frances1p]

Re: Waitrose Cash Machine/Nat West Bank?

:tinysmile_aha_t:Thanks for clarifying the process, the bank uses to verify such discrepancies. I do understand that they have to be 100% certain of customers discrepancy/machine fault - tallying up etc.

However, I was led to believe that because the 'Cash Machine' had actually began the process of ejecting the Notes and before fully expelled, it drew the notes back into the machine. These notes (the amount my son requested eg: £200) would be stored in a seperate compartment of the Cash Machine. If this is so, surely given that my son 'claims' to have requested £X, his bank balance will show £X paid that day and £X found to have been returned to this 'compartment' in the machine - all of which tallys up???

Just seems that waiting anything from 10 days to six weeks is an awful long time, for a fairly simple equasion??

iBut thanks - I guess I was just hoping to find some way around it to speed up the process? :cry:

[natweststaffmember]

Re: Waitrose Cash Machine/Nat West Bank?

:tinysmile_aha_t:Thanks for clarifying the process, the bank uses to verify such discrepancies. I do understand that they have to be 100% certain of customers discrepancy/machine fault - tallying up etc.

However, I was led to believe that because the 'Cash Machine' had actually began the process of ejecting the Notes and before fully expelled, it drew the notes back into the machine. These notes (the amount my son requested eg: £200) would be stored in a seperate compartment of the Cash Machine. If this is so, surely given that my son 'claims' to have requested £X, his bank balance will show £X paid that day and £X found to have been returned to this 'compartment' in the machine - all of which tallys up???
And that is what would be printed on the ATM roll.
Just seems that waiting anything from 10 days to six weeks is an awful long time, for a fairly simple equasion??
The ATM would have to be balanced and with remote ATM's., ie at garages, shops, etc,etc, the ATM is never balanced on site but done at a cash centre. Any discrepancies reported at banks are first checked. So the process at the bank is to check the money has not been recredited, checking that the card was used, that all things from the bank side are checked prior to sending the ATM dispute to their head office. They then check the ATM specific, then the tally roll(or the ATM roll which would have recorded the notes being taken back) before it would then be confirmed and the money is sent back to the head office of the bank who will re credit the account the same day as it is received.
iBut thanks - I guess I was just hoping to find some way around it to speed up the process? :cry:

Apologies for long winded explanation but even when money is sucked back in, the atm will record the transaction that was made for it to be sucked back and there have been cases where the amount taken back in was different to the difference on the machine.