Cash may increasingly seem like a relic of a bygone age (less than 10% of Americans use cash as their primary way of paying for stuff these days), but paper money is still useful. Sure, it’s almost impossible to live a cash-only life these days, but when emergencies hit and the power and data connections shut down, cash is still king. Even if you rarely use cash, chances are you have a debit card linked to your bank accounts and use it at an ATM from time to time.
ATMs are pretty reliable and secure as long you take some basic precautions and stay abreast of the clever scams people employ to rob you. But like any machine or computer, ATMs can malfunction—and when they do it’s often much more than a simple inconvenience, because it involves your money. Bounced checks, late fees—the consequences of getting screwed over by your ATM can be disastrous. You can’t necessarily predict when an ATM is going to ruin your day, but you can be aware of what can go wrong and how to deal with each scenario. Here are all the ways an ATM can screw you over—and what to do about it.
When an ATM give you the wrong amount of cash
The primary way people use ATMs is to withdraw cash from their accounts. Usually, this is a pretty straightforward process: You insert or tap your card, punch in your personal identification number (PIN), and follow on-screen instructions to choose the account you’re accessing and the amount of money you want.
If that particular ATM is in the mood to screw you, one of two things happens next: You don’t get any cash, or you get too much cash. While the latter situation might seem like cause for celebration, chances are your bank will figure out what happened eventually and you may be hit with penalties for keeping the cash—or have your account closed entirely. So whether it’s zero cash or just an incorrect amount of it, you need to take a few steps:
Document the incident. Note the time, take photos of any messages on the screen and your receipt, assuming you got one. If there are several ATMs in the location, note which one it is. Gather all the information you can.
Report the incorrect amount. If you’re at your bank, go inside and inform the staff immediately. If not, call your banking institution right then and there and report the problem. Your bank is required by law to investigate your claim, though you may need to fill out a form and submit any documentation you have. Try to stay by the ATM until you’ve completed reporting the incident, in case it’s caused by a scam (see below).
It can take several weeks to resolve these kinds of errors, unfortunately. Your bank may credit your account, but they’re not required to do so until the end of the investigation, so you might need to make some short-term plans.
When an ATM messes up your deposit
Another way an ATM can mess up your life is when you use one to make a deposit—either by eating your cash or checks and not crediting your account, or by miscounting the deposit amount. This isn’t just infuriating—it can lead to a long list of problems, from unpaid bills to missing payroll for a small business. Here’s what to do if it happens:
Count everything. This might seem crazy, but a surprising number of people don’t count cash before depositing it into the machine, assuming it will count the bills for them. Some folks also don’t make a note of check amounts, again relying on the ATM’s optical scanner to accurately count everything for them. Don’t be lazy: Know precisely how much money you’re depositing.
Document & report. Again, your best first action is to take photos and record all the details—time, place, specific machine, and amount of your deposit. Then contact the bank by going in to find an employee or calling immediately.
The bank will investigate the incident, but make sure they review the security camera footage, which can confirm your presence and the fact that you made a deposit. Banks aren’t always willing to go through this trouble for smaller amounts of money, so be ready to push a bit.
When an ATM eats your card
Many ATMs have gone contactless, with the ability to tap a chipped debit card or your phone to access your accounts; others have chip readers that you insert your card into and immediately retract. But plenty of them still have the old-fashioned mechanism that sucks your card in, reads the magnetic strip, and then spits it back out. Which gives that ATM the opportunity to ruin your day by eating your card.
On a scale of getting screwed by an ATM, this is pretty low, of course, but it’s still a pain to deal with. Your obvious first step is to contact the bank to report the problem. At that stage you’ll have two choices on how to proceed:
Request a new card. You can have the bank cancel the eaten card and send out a replacement. This is the safest choice, as it prevents anyone from using your card if they happen to get access to it before the bank can retrieve it (say, if the ATM decides an hour later to spit it back out). If you go into the bank in person you can probably get a new card immediately, but if you have to call it can take seven to 10 days to get that card, and you won’t have a debit card during that time.
Retrieve the card. You can also ask your bank to simply retrieve the card when they next service the ATM, and send it to you or hold it for you to pick up. This can be a much faster and more convenient choice, but you do run some (small) risk of the card being intercepted before the ATM is serviced next.
When an ATM is an unwitting party to fraud
Finally, ATMs are pretty secure, but they’re still prime targets for fraud. A lot of that fraud relies on age-old scam techniques that have nothing to do with your ATM, but there are a few ways a compromised ATM can be forced to screw you over:
Skimmers and shimmers. Thieves can place fake card readers on ATMs that read the magnetic strip or chip information, then pass it through to the ATM. As a result, you still complete your transaction but the thieves have all they need to duplicate your card. Before you insert or tap your debit card, physically examine the reader—try to pull it off the machine, and look for any physical inconsistencies in color or texture.
Traps. A “trap” is when a thief sabotages the ATM so that cash being dispensed gets stuck in the machine, or your card gets stuck in the machine. When you leave the area, the thief disables the trap and retrieves either your cash or your card (or both). This is why it’s a good idea to remain by the ATM until you’ve reported an eaten card or lack of cash from a withdrawal, so at least you have a record of the problem.
Cameras. Always cover the keypad when entering a PIN. Scammers often set up tiny cameras in ATM kiosks to film keypads. If they use a fake reader to duplicate the card and get your PIN from a camera, your account is officially compromised.
Tapping. One way thieves access ATMs that allow you to just tap your card is to simply wait until you leave. Many ATMs that allow tapping leave the transaction open until you manually end it—if you just walk away after getting your cash, the thief simply walks to the machine and makes as many withdrawals as possible. Adding salt to the wound: Because you left the screen active, some banks may balk at reimbursing you, claiming you authorized the transactions. Always make sure you terminate your session at an ATM before walking away.