Natwest ATM giving out fake £20 notes - advice needed please

[Caz1974]

This is quite a long one so please bare with me.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

My sister withdrew her money from her local atm machine ( The Natwest ) even though she banks with the Halifax - it's just that this atm is closer to home for her.

Anyway she withdrew an amount of cash with a reciept and crossed over the road, going into a shop to purchase some cat food. The shop owner noticed her £20 note was a fake and refused to take it.

So in shock she went straight back to the Natwest ( she was a little shook up because she's never done anything illegal or out of sorts in her life and the shop owner telling her that the note was a fake embarrassed her tremendously ).

Inside the Natwest she was told that because her actual account is with the Halifax that they would have to deal with it and was sent there ( myself I would have argued that the £20 note came out of their machine so was their problem ).

At the Halifax my sister explained the situation and a member of staff checked all the notes , 3 x £20 notes were found to be fake so were taken off her and a slip was filled out to say they had recieved them.

She was told that the money would be credited back into her account soon.

Today she decided to chase it up because she had still had no funds credited to her account.

The manager at the Halifax is now saying it is the responsibility of the Natwest to refund the money because it was their ATM it was withdrawn from and the Natwest are saying that it is the Halifax who should pay because it is their branch where the account is held.

So in the meantime my sister is £60 out of pocket ( she lives on disability benefits so it is a large amount of her income ) and she was so upset on the telephone earlier she doesn't know which way to go with this.

She's always trusted the banks and cannot belive that money in their machines was counterfeit.

She feels like £60 as been stolen from her because of the ATM and that nobody cares.

Is she within her rights to call the police, I'm asking this because she's worried this might happen at the ATM to other innocent people and she also would like some advice of what to do next.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated

[sarajulldin]

Personally i Would contact the police and make them aware that both banks are not doing enough and you suspect the atm will have further fake notes, will could circulate further in the area.

[yourbank]

This is quite a long one so please bare with me.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

My sister withdrew her money from her local atm machine ( The Natwest ) even though she banks with the Halifax - it's just that this atm is closer to home for her.

Anyway she withdrew an amount of cash with a reciept and crossed over the road, going into a shop to purchase some cat food. The shop owner noticed her £20 note was a fake and refused to take it.

So in shock she went straight back to the Natwest ( she was a little shook up because she's never done anything illegal or out of sorts in her life and the shop owner telling her that the note was a fake embarrassed her tremendously ).

Inside the Natwest she was told that because her actual account is with the Halifax that they would have to deal with it and was sent there ( myself I would have argued that the £20 note came out of their machine so was their problem ).

At the Halifax my sister explained the situation and a member of staff checked all the notes , 3 x £20 notes were found to be fake so were taken off her and a slip was filled out to say they had recieved them.

She was told that the money would be credited back into her account soon.

Today she decided to chase it up because she had still had no funds credited to her account.

The manager at the Halifax is now saying it is the responsibility of the Natwest to refund the money because it was their ATM it was withdrawn from and the Natwest are saying that it is the Halifax who should pay because it is their branch where the account is held.

So in the meantime my sister is £60 out of pocket ( she lives on disability benefits so it is a large amount of her income ) and she was so upset on the telephone earlier she doesn't know which way to go with this.

She's always trusted the banks and cannot belive that money in their machines was counterfeit.

She feels like £60 as been stolen from her because of the ATM and that nobody cares.

Is she within her rights to call the police, I'm asking this because she's worried this might happen at the ATM to other innocent people and she also would like some advice of what to do next.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated

 

This is what is commonly known as buck passing. I think Halifax can refund the amount since they have effectively taken responsibility of the notes and can then argue the toss with NatWest. I think you need to get her to put in a formal complaint in writing asking for a written response.

 

 

As a complete aside, I have to say that it is a very odd situation that an ATM has given out fake notes since all ATM money comes from large bullion centres which effectively sort fake notes from legit notes however I suspect I know how they got into the ATM machine but it is irrelevant to how the money is refunded.

[cezent]

I ve had very similar encounter recently. Here s what happened:

 

my girlfriend withdraw £200 from one of NatWest cash machine in London before we go on holiday. the withdraw was from her HSBC card though she has a saving account with natwest. we found out several days later that 3x£20 pound notes looks very odd with heavy ink stains all over them. One of the notes in particular were extremely suspicious with lots of details missing and very blur printings. All the retailers refuse to accept this 3 notes as expected.

 

We went back to the branch where the ATM located and ask them to exchange it, (with her bank statement from HSBC clearing stating the time,amount and branch of the withdraw). The cashier refuse to do so as the card was not NatWest based. (and claimed after very rough examination that the oddest note was fake and they would definitely not able to do anything about it). We insisted the cash was from their machine, and hence its their responsibility, and insisted on speaking to a manager.

 

When speaking to the manager, we were told (similar to other stories we ve heard so far) the cash in cash machines are not from only NatWest Vault but from a centralized processing centre for all LINK banks, hence they would not be able to accept responsibility.

 

I basically told them that if that's the case, they should all the more treat this case extremely serious and should investigate how on earth did a fake notes manage to penetrate into operation system. I said I would complain and alert FSA directly if I am in the manager's position.

 

The manager said they will need to examine the notes and see if all 3 are fakes. If anyone of them are genuine currency they would be able to swap it straight away, otherwise they will need to submit it to higher level and see what comes back. She took the notes away and came back in a couple of minutes and claimed that all three notes are actually real and offered to exchange them. I don't know if they actually did test or what test they did with those suspicious notes (particularly the one that the cashier claimed "defintely fake") but in the end we got all £60 back in new currency.

 

I think your sister should have inisited on Natwest's responsibility at the very first instance. However, since she has now given the notes to Halifax, it is halifax's responsibility to give her the money back. There are several things she should consider doing:

 

1) going back to the halifax branch with a detail account of the chain of events and copies of all documents, including atm mini statement/bank statement, slips from halifax for accepting the fake notes (do not give them the original copies) and demand a reply (and insist on their respoinsibily for accepting the notes)

 

2)write the halifax complain department with all the details.

 

3) write to halifax compliance department with the detail account and copies of documents, copy Natwest compliance department on the same letter.

 

4)inform Financial Ombudsman Service with the detail account of events, photocopies of documents, person/branch involved, and the fact that neither bank is claiming responsibilities.

our complaints procedure and how to complain

 

 

 

Hope your sister will get her money bank soon.