Bank Machine in Krakow did not feed out cash

nohatnoswim

Hi All,

Last week, Thursday, In Krakow myself and the missus went to a cash machine.

I popped my card in, and attempted to take out 1,000 Polish Currency (about 240 euros).
The machine made some noises, and then said "Hardware Failure" on the screen.
I thought, strange enough. Try again.
Same thing happened.
Then I suggested the Missus have a crack (bad idea).
Same again.

So then we went around the corner, and at another machine I attempted to take out 1000 polish again.
This time, Insufficient funds appeared on the screen.
That god me panicking as I was sure there was at least 500 quid in there.

I tried 500, no joy.

I tried 200, and it gave me that - 50 quid or so.

We freaked, and ran back to the hotel around the corner to get online and see if we could see anything.

Sure enough, there was money locked up on my available balance , so I rang the bank - Ulster Bank.

The girl told me that she could see the 2 tranactions sitting there and they shoudl be reversed in the morning and all will be fine.

The next day, same thing - balance was locked up and not refunded.

It's now 5 full business days since the transactions.

This is day 6.

I have spent about 6 hours on the phone with Ulster Bank, and I'm starting to get the impression that they really don't care about my problem. I'm met with an irritated girl each time I call her to ask for an update, and I'm being patient and reasonable with them so far.

Has anyone any experience with this sort of thing ?

Are there steps I should be taking ?

I'm getting really frustrated as I've put a lot of energy into saying and trying to do the right thing here to get some results, and absolutely nothing has moved an inch since thursday last week.

Cheers,

Al.

Sully

Reversals can take up to 10days. I know because I have waited. Apparently its out of the banks control and they cant make it arrive any quicker.

Tip: If the machine fails once with "Hardware Failure" - dont keep trying again and again and again. Each time you did, the transaction was processed but the machines hardware could not supply the money.

nohatnoswim

Hey,

Thanks for the info !

As for doing it again, it's safe to say I'll be travelling with wads of cash in the future.

You just never know with bank machines, and my polish ain't so good for negotiations like this ;-)

Al.

nohatnoswim

Hey,

I was thinking, do you think that up to 10 days is some sort of actual waiting limit or something - curious why you said "up to 10" ?!!

Anyone else got any experience with these types ot things ?

Cheers,

Al.

tfitzgerald

that happened to me at atm outside tsb in the cresent they gave me out money but deducted it from my account 3 times when i went in the next day they were very nice and after 20 min of form filling told me it would be fixed soon. Two week later the money 600€ was refunded but in the meantime direct debits were returned and now they want me to pay the referral fee on about six transactions the wife is going mental over this

JJ

Something like that happened to me at one of the cash machines in Temple Bar square. Intially I didn't know what was going on but I found out later that probably due to my card being scratched, the machine swallowed up my card and rebooted. When it was rebooting, I had no idea what was going on and refused to leave the machine until I found out what was going on. I rang the number on the ATM and they explained what happened. I rang my bank and they confirmed no money left my account and all they could do was issue a new card. I had some cash at home but waiting for a new card was a PITA.