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Money 'vanishes' in ATM glitchDate Posted: Thursday 01-May-2008If you are a Standard Bank customer and have made transactions through a Priora ATM in the past three days, check your bank statements and ensure you accounts are in order.
The Star is in possession of a Standard Bank internal "operational alert" memo issued to all their branches on Wednesday informing staff that, due to "a problem with our batch processing on Tuesday night, ATM withdrawals and deposits that were made on Priora ATMs from Sunday 27 April 2008 until Tuesday 29 April 2008 are not reflecting on customers' statements".
The email lists the affected transactions, which included cash withdrawals, deposits, transfers, electronic account payments (EAPs), prepaids and ATM report actioning. It goes on to inform staff that the transactions would be updated on Wednesday, but that branches are "not to take any action" on a customer's account.
Warren Bell made an EAP of R3 703,41 to his credit card through an Auto Plus ATM on Tuesday afternoon. Later that day, R20 000 was deposited into Bell's account by a family member. Both transactions were reflected on his 30-day statement.
| 'a teller allegedly told him that what he was proposing was impossible' |
However, when he tried to withdraw money from his account on Wednesday morning, he was unable to, and the statement suddenly did not reflect any of the transactions made via an ATM from the previous day.
"I couldn't understand what had happened because it was like it disappeared, because there was nothing there," he said.
When he went inside the bank to query the balance, a teller allegedly told him that what he was proposing was "impossible".
He produced the two statements from Tuesday and Wednesday - one reflecting the transactions, the other one not.
The teller called the help desk, who informed her that there had been a problem with ATM transactions since Saturday, but that they were working on it.
| 'The reaction from Standard Bank is disgusting' |
She told Bell there was nothing she could do about it and that she did not know where the money was, but advised him to go to his branch to increase the overdraft. He did just that, but the consultant could not process the request because she had been informed "not to act on your account".
"The reaction from Standard Bank is disgusting. They were absolutely blase. They've known about this problem for days, but they don't notify their clientele.
"If I was at fault they would have come down on me like a ton of bricks, but all they can tell me is that they don't know where the money is," he said.
A consultant at one of the branches in Joburg, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the ATM transaction debacle was a national problem the bank had been experiencing since Saturday, and that she had dealt with numerous clients expressing the same grievances.
Ross Linstrom, the press relations manager for Standard Bank, on Wednesday explained that there had been a "mainframe problem with some of the ATMs, but not all of them over the past two or three days".
At 2.30pm on Wednesday, he assured The Star that as we spoke, Bell's account had been sorted out and that "everything is back to normal".
But Bell checked his statement after The Star had contacted Linstrom and the problem had yet to be rectified.
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