ATM Card - WOW - Anyone every had this happen?
Submitted by upfront on Fri, 2012/01/27 - 17:14.
I feel like I have been ROBBED! Actually, I was robbed! 5-6 weeks back I signed into my USA banks website and realized I was missing well over $1000 US from my account. I had never used this particular banks ATM card here before and it seems that each time I had tried to take money, they were withdrawing it from my account but only a couple of times did I actually GET money! Once at CITI I tried 5 different times in a matter of a couple of minutes but kept getting "this transaction is invalid" I starting off with a rather large amount and going down thinking that I was asking for too much. I gave up and left without receiving a dime. Later I tried at another bank with similar results.... I finally did get money out of BAC.
Just got off the phone once again with the bank back home which has been most unhelpful. I filled out all the forms and affidavits but by the sounds of it I am doubting I will ever see the money again at this point. I have canceled the card and will no longer be doing business with the bank after I get this straight (or give up trying to get my money back anyway). I can't believe how downright unhelpful they have been, eerrrrr!
Has anyone ever had anything like this happen to them?
I had this happen
at BDF a few years ago, but it was duplicate transactions.. I showed the records that demonstrated that the withdrawals happened seconds apart, which is impossible for me to do. But no luck getting my money back. I stopped using the BDF ATM after that.. that was about 3 years ago.
Same issue
Unless it was a BDF account and BDF ATM, there is the same issue. It is unlikely that it is the fault of the ATM owner. In this case, however, the card issuer bank should be checking and should decline the second transaction.
Not a solution, but some more info
I read this Forecast: Partly Crappy with a Chance of Diarrhea a few days back.
Some people write a monthly check from the bank back home, deposit it locally, and then draw funds from the local bank. At least in that case, if there is a problem you can blame the local bank, and might get somewhere by yelling at them.
No Sniveling!
Many pieces
I a past life I worked with bank networks. (I didn't work for the network nor a bank, I worked for a company that was developing on-line transaction handling for gas stations.) There are a lot of pieces in the situation you describe.
As a minimum, there is your bank "back home"'s interface to a banking network (CIRRUS and PLUS are two examples) and then the interface here between the network and the bank's system. That's the minimum. There probably are others involved.
So, the ATM sends the transaction to the local bank who sends it over some banking network who sends it to your US bank. That bank approves the transaction and sends a message back to the banking network. Somewhere after that, some system decides the transaction did not work and sends that message to the ATM.
It is 99% certain that your bank approved the transaction and, thus, paid the money. As you say you did this at an assortment of ATMs with different banks and it didn't work, there is a 99% chance the ATM did in fact receive the error. (While an ATM is programmable it is basically pretty dumb--on purpose. It handles encryption/decryption and communications but, beyond that, it just does what it is told.) That means some interface along the way got confused. It should not be that hard to figure out what one if the right players get involved. Unfortunately, that is not your bank back home and it is probably not the owner of the ATMs.
One piece of data you could add to help is see which bank networks are used by BAC and by the ATMs which failed. It usually says on the ATM but, if not, ask at the bank.
Which state?
I just thought of this. In which state is your bank "back home". As an example, when I was doing my bank network work, all the banks in Wisconsin were using a single network. (As I remember, this was legislated.) The people running it were, well, morons. Things worked almost OK within the state but if such a state-level network got interfaced to, for example, PLUS, it could mean disaster outside the state.
It is a credit union based
It is a credit union based in SC.
Another step
That pretty much guarantees another step between them and the ATM. To the best of my knowledge, they have to use a bank who then links to the banking (credit card) network. While they may seem disinterested, the reality is that whatever happened is not in any way under their control.
Note that I have a debit card from a US credit union (Oregon) and have never had a problem using an ATM here but the reality is that if I did have a problem I would expect a long and complicated process to resolve it.
Citi
Have you spoken with a Citi representative yet? Even if your bank won't reverse the transaction perhaps Citi has a record of the error and can disperse or return your funds.
I say that because it sounds like (and this is just a guess) the funds were cleared and transferred but the ATM or bank errored out.
I have not spoken to CITI
I have not spoken to CITI but I may along with the other ATM owner, can't remember at the moment, but it was outside la Colonia. I have used my Chase cards ATM here for years with not one problem, but 11 out of 13 transactions were errors and me getting no cash with this other banks ATM card so I feel certain it is somehow directly related to an error on their part. I thought that it would be an easy case of tracking it down but seems my bank isn't interested in putting in the work to do so.
Credit cards are accepted almost everywhere, so really no need to spend more than a few hundred in cash maximum each month. I go home at least every 90 days I may just bring back enough cash from this point on. I have also considered just using xoom in the future when I absolutely need cash. It is just the frustration of having this bank not seeming to give a rats behind that is really p'ssing me off. Oh well, live and learn.
This May Be
just a bank-specific situation where the bank -or the branch itself- (actually a human within the system, or someone who services the ATM) is intentionally stealing money.
If we could identify the ATM's where the transaction does not produce the cash we expect, we could then simply avoid those ATM's. No need to suggest that the bank is stealing (and possibly run afoul of Nicaraguan slander laws) ; just an informational post that a particular ATM is not 100% functional. If someone else responds: "Hey, I use that ATM all the time without problem . .." then it could be a card or connection issue. If someone comes back with: "Yeah, I had the same problem at the same ATM ...." we would eventually develop a list of ATM's that are trustworthy ---or not.
We could create a thread specific to this problem, and update it with new incidents. Eventually all the suspicious ATM's would be isolated, and a pattern specific to a particular bank might be identified.
Similar threads could be generated to report crime incidents. Keeping the incidents in one thread would identify those locations that are particularly dangerous, and patterns specific to the incidents. I've often thought that we could do the same with traffic stop locations notorious for shakedowns. But to be effective, the information would have to presented in one continuous thread.
I thought that I had a foolproof system figured out, but the vulnerability of credit cards and debit cards in Nicaragua is alarming. Business debit cards have especially high purchase and cash withdrawal limits, and some of the consumer protection rules don't apply.
The normal rules don't seem to apply to merchants in Nicaragua who are inclined to fraudulently mis-use the cards provided by thieves. Just the hassle of getting something straightened out long distance .. and the other point someone made: The first thing the financial entity will do is shut the card down (to avoid further loss to themselves).
Best of all would be for the Nicaraguan banks who support this merchant fraud to be embargoed, but that is not going to happen. The bank therefore really has no incentive to police their customers' fraudulent activity. Quite the opposite: they earn a processing fee 3X what I pay for accepting a CC in the US at my business.
A simple Western Union (Money in Minutes at $11.99) twice a month might be the solution (as others have suggested). But then, all the bad guys know where the Western Union office is and can simply follow you until they find an opportune moment . . (...Aren't you the same guy who robbed me two weeks ago?? . . ) .Plus you need to have a trustworthy human on the other end to initiate the transfer. WU supports an internet generated transfer, but the fee oddly, is three times as high as using one of their kiosks.
google maps
You would be surprised what can be done with Google maps' API. We could have an annotated map that indicates the problem ATMs rather than just a list.
Easier solution
Open a bank account here and get an ATM card. You can then just write a check and deposit it here (with the usual 30 day hold). That also gets rid of ATM fees.
Yes it happens
Half a dozen times that I can think of to various tourists here in SJdS in as many years.
Some I figured could be "operator error", some were extensions of the truth and some were real.
Get On A
program that emails you instantly when an ATM withdrawal is made.
At least you will know when (if not how) they are stealing your money!
no problems
I have used ATMs here I would say once a week for 5 1/2 years, but usually I use a Bac card in a bac machine, etc, or a US credit union debit card at a bank ATM here. I almost never use a credit card here, and when I do it is only at Hotel mercedes or at 2 gas stations here in Esteli.
In any case, anyone who uses cards here needs to monitor all their purchases online as soon as possible.
Also, my source account in the states I run as a pass thru type of deal--it only has my pension and a couple hundred bucks. In the event of a problem, it would run out of money very quickly before my loses were great.
Also, the local MaxiPali has an ATM machine and a Banpro branch. The ATM charges only a flat fee of $1 to suck money straight from the states, and their store accepts my US debit card. For a buck, it makes sense to just get cash and not have to bother going downtown.
"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality." Ayn Rand
Sounds like great NL advice...
That should be posted somewhere where people will find it, and not buried in a post......Moderator?
Summoned again like some dead spirit....
Here I am. That's a good idea.
ATM Robo Richard
I had the same thing happen to me at the Banpro ATM in Ocotal. C5000 refused, dropped down to C2000 received. Noticed that I was charged for both. Accessed BOA online and there was no proper description of the ATM robbing me, so BOA wanted info that I couldn't provide. Several weeks later, I was able to get a person on the phone and found that they had cancelled my card because of the complaint! For a $20.00 fee they would send a new card that would get here in 4 days. That was before Christmas:STILL WAITING! This reminds me, time to ask for my $20.00 back. RWC