What To Do If An ATM Fails To Dispense Your Money

Regular Money Digest readers and overall thrifty types will already know about how to locate an ATM that doesn't charge you a fee to withdraw your hard-earned cash. But what happens if an ATM doesn't dispense your money at all? Or dispenses some of the cash, but not the full amount that your account was debited for? Talk about bad luck. Fortunately, today's ATMs are extremely reliable, so the chances of a malfunction are pretty rare. That said, glitches do occasionally happen.

What's especially alarming, though, is if the ATM withdrawal is shown in full on your account's transaction history, but too little or no cash is actually dispensed to you. In that case, it might seem like getting reimbursed will involve a level of trust from your bank that the short-change situation actually occurred. That's not to mention that if your bank account balance was already running low, you will now have a further diminished balance and no cash to spend. Should this happen to you, here's what you can do to solve this dilemma as quickly as possible.

If you find yourself the victim of a cheapskate ATM, the first thing you'll want to do is record the time, date, and the location of the machine. If the offending ATM is one of several grouped together, note which one it is. Better still, take a few photos with your smartphone to document the situation. Then, contact your bank immediately; there's likely a phone number printed on the back of your debit card for such purposes.

If you used a credit card to withdraw some cash instead of a debit card, the advice is still the same: Contact the card issuer. And by the way, using a credit card for a cash advance is typically a terrible idea. The annual percentage rate interest charges are usually sky-high and to add insult to injury, a separate transaction fee may be levied. To be sure, cash advances are one of the things you should never pay for with a credit card.

In any case, definitely contact your own financial institution or credit card company first. This said, if the ATM is owned by a third party other than your card issuer, it's probably a good idea to contact them as well just so all relevant parties are notified. In the end, however, it'll be your own bank that makes the final decision on issuing a credit.

Technically, you have up to 60 days to report that an ATM failed to give you the correct amount of money, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That said, it's best practice to notify your bank immediately. Speaking of time limits, once your financial institution is notified, it has 10 days to review your claim and either issue a credit or explain what further action is being taken.

In the case of the latter, the financial institution will have an additional 45 days to determine what happened. During that 45-day period, it's possible that a temporary "provisional credit" will be issued for the disputed amount. If the bank eventually decides against you, the provisional credit will be removed from your account, even if you already spent the money.

Interestingly, even if an offending ATM is located inside or outside of a physical bank branch, on-site employees won't be able to open the machine. They also won't be able to reimburse your missing cash on the spot, either. However, they can help with processing your claim in person.

If an ATM fails to dispense your money and your account is debited anyway, it can be a stressful situation. Yet, take solace in the fact that it's extremely rare for this phenomenon to occur. A more frequent scenario is that an ATM runs low on cash and lets the user know that they can withdraw however much cash remains or cancel the ATM transaction instead.

Now, if you suspect that something doesn't seem right about the ATM, stop using it immediately. This suspicion could be triggered by a card skimmer that's placed over the actual card reader slot to steal sensitive information. As well, scammers have been known to place a false keypad over the ATM's real keypad to record a user's unique PIN code. For more on this topic, check out our full article on how to identify card skimmers.