Woman gets bogus $20 from ATM. Banks say "Tough luck, *****"

For all they know, maybe she got a real bill, and just made a counterfit and tried to say it gave that to her.

WAY out of line. Some time back, when the cash-dispensing of ATMs were a lot more "mechanical" and involved rotating reach-in compartments opening up, I got a pack of 20s that were ONE short. I immediately went inside and explained the situation. I recall filling out a form and signing it. In due time, my account was credited with the missing $20. One other time, at the same bank and outside ATM, the hatch opened and there was an OVERAGE of a $20 bill. The bank teller inside explained that she couldn't accept it.

This isn't to put these banks in a more "honorable" light than they're entitled to (that's not where I, a Chomsky socialist, am coming from). But it makes good PR sense to "write off" such losses. Seattle has a reputation, which I believe is well deserved, of 'honesty' by the citizenry. That may have been factored into the local policy of the bank manager (if there iS such a local policy).

pnorman

similiar punishment to the asshole who told her tough luck.

If the counterfeit bill had not been so obviously spotted, I might think differently. It is very difficult for a fake bill to get to the point of distribution from a bank.

I feel sorry for her if she's telling the truth. But, I've seen people try to pull off some amazing scams with ATM machines.

In my home area, there are ads for tellers starting at $7.00 near ads for fast food paying the same amount. It is a miracle that more stuff like this doesn't happen.

Teller pay does pretty much suck.

But for this to happen would require a freak series of errors.

The money that goes into an ATM usually isn't well-circulated cash. If it is, it's money that has been screened by banks as safe to be circulated. The screening process is not overseen only by tellers.

Of course, I would agree it's not totally impossible, just highly unlikely, which is why I'm skeptical.

A guy using an ATM where I worked once tried something similar. He claimed he got a torn bill from the ATM. Now this is much more possible. The machine could have torn it. Unfortunately for him, he only had one half of the bill, naturally with only one set of serial numbers. (For a bill to be considered legal tender, both sets of serial numbers have to be present.) He tried to get me to give him a "clean" bill. I told him I couldn't do that but that I could call the ATM service company, and they'd come out and check the machine for the other half of his bill and make sure his account was refunded. He didn't wait for that. He did go across the street to another store and try the same scam.

We were always talking about ways to get the money out of the bank but non of us ever tried.

about six years ago. I had the same problem; the bank wouldn't believe it came from them, even though their ATM spat it out to me just minutes before (they could have looked at the video, but they weren't interested in doing so). The $20 I received was very obviously a fake. I was absolutely shocked that it came from my credit union; don't they have people or machines that are supposed to check for that sort of thing?

Well, I guess I learn something new all the time. :-)

They do have machines that check this sort of thing. Actually, the counting machine I used simply wouldn't recognize a fake bill as it was counting, so the count came up short. I'd set the machine to stop on the bill not being counted, which would pick out the fake bill.

I dunno. Maybe the machines are better now than they were, and maybe some banks still use the out-dated machines.

The machine would have had to recognize it as a $20.00 bill in order to put it into the stack of bills going into the ATM. Someone should talk to the teller that handles that machine.

She should contact the FBI about that one, because banks aren't supposed to do that. If she has proof that the bank gave her the fake $20, then the bank is by definition passing counterfeit money, and will be going out of business soon.

The FBI should get involved.

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?channel_id=2&story_id=7222

well:
--snip
Under German law, anybody who finds a counterfeit in their wallet must hand it in to the police without compensation. If the money came from a bank, the customer must then persuade the bank to hand over a genuine replacement note.

"It's very hard to prove," said Holtkamp. Banks that used the Bundesbank testing service all the time would deny issuing a counterfeit. But there have been cases where banks had replaced notes "as an exception".

--snap

i wouldn't expect the bank to give her another bill. it's a bank! they are in the business of screwing people over . . ..

It's a friggin' $20 bill!

Who would go through all that trouble with the bank over a lousy $20 if they were trying to pull a scam?

The bank should just give her the $20 and write it off.

A lot of people.

I've had people try to scam me for a dollar. When I worked in a convenience store, someone tried to scam me at least once a day, and it was rarely for anything more than a few dollars.

Some people do it for the attention or because they're pissed or just because they want to get away with something. People steal stacks of blue towels from windshield washing buckets, worth a whopping ten cents.

Who knows why people do the things they do. :shrug:

Oh wait, big corporations are exempt from the laws that everyone else must follow.

Several years ago I did a large cash transaction, withdrawing the cash from the bank to buy a truck. They bank gave me 2 - 100 dollar bills that were caught at another bank when they were later deposited by the seller.

His bank told him "write it off as a capital loss" and my bank told me
"Once you walk out it's yours; once he accepts it it's his".

All banks circulate bogus bills, sometimes they catch it and sometimes they don't.

When you get cash from a teller, you are often getting cash that hasn't been screened ... just whatever they've taken in that day.

otherwise they have to take the loss. putting them in an atm is perfect, because it's not possible for the customer to prove conclusively that it came from the machine.