I received this message from my BU4 Resident Yahoo group. It seems some insider within the bank is out to defraud the general public by folding RM50 note in the ATM, and when dispensed, it will count as two notes. Whoever did this inside the bank now get to keep the RM50 at bank account holder’s expense.

This was not the first time it has happened; my father experienced this several years ago. Therefore this is definitely an inside job within the bank. My father could not recover his RM50 either even after complaining to the bank. The bank was the then Bank Bumiputra (now completely merge to become CIMB bank, so you could imagine how long ago this trick was still being used). With the neatly folded RM50, the machine counted it as two RM50 notes. As far as the machine was concern, it has dispensed the correct number of notes. So there is no way as a bank account holder could you recover your money. The bank will not entertain your recovery claims.

In the message bleow, the lackadaisical attitude of the bank customer service was also a blow to us account holders. Since the bank PIC was aware that such things do occur as they have informed but still they simply just fault it as an ATM malfunction (when in actual fact was fraud done by insider), but because you could not furnish proof that you have been dispensed with a missing note there is no way you could recover your money. They lay the burden on the consumer and not do anything to solve this problem.

If the bankers are ever reading this, I think they should modify their ATM machine to count the money on both ends rather than one end of the money stack. That way no insider can repeat this trick to defraud us consumer; otherwise we will lose confidence with ATM machine and resort back to over the counter withdrawals. But I guess they will just ask you to go back to the ATM machine to withdraw.

Perhaps a police report should be made to make it official. Then publish in the papers. How about that?

From: Loo, Jasmin-WP
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 8:47 AM
Subject: FW: ATM users be cautious

Dear All,

I would like to share a real life story with all my friends and especially all my colleagues and all Maybank account holders.

This incident happened on today evening (1 April 2008). I went to the PJ State (Also known as PJ New Town) Maybank to withdraw RM500. Unfortunately for me, only 9 RM50 notes came out instead of 10.

What happened was, one of the RM50 notes was folded exactly in half and placed at a corner of the stack (Please refer to the attached pictures showing how two RM50 notes can be counted as three).

I was so upset because I have no proof that the ATM did not give me the correct amount. After much hesitation, I finally decided to call Maybank to complain about the incident knowing that I may not get back my money. But at least I can caution them of such incident. When I told of my situation to the Maybank Customer Service Representative, to my surprise, I was informed that I’m not the first victim. It seems that similar cases have occurred before. The lady explained that it is the malfunction of the ATM and the money may accidentally get folded in half. However when questioned, she was unable to explain to me why the money can be folded exactly in half and placed nicely in the corner of the stack.

I believe this is the new technique of cheating money, done by the people who are responsible of placing the money into the ATMs. In the stack of money which is to be placed into the ATM, one RM50 note is folded nicely in half, for every one note taken out of the stack of money. The folded RM50 notes are then placed at the edge of the stack and positioned in the ATM where the money would be counted. With that done, every one folded note would be counted by the machine as two notes.

I may be wrong about how and why it happened, but I would like to warn everyone about this incident. Please be careful when withdrawing money from the ATM (it may happen to other banks as well) and do count your money to be sure. If such an incident really happened to you (*touch wood*), please do call up the bank to complain about this. If everyone keeps quiet about this, the bank may be unaware of such incidents and the people responsible may just continue doing what they do without getting caught! Even if it is actually because of the ATM malfunctioning, the bank should know about this and there is also a chance of you getting your money back.