ATM woes: 'I was left stranded'

We had asked you, dear readers to share your good and bad ATM experiences.

Vyom Agrawal, 39, shares his experience. You can share yours too! 

This incident happened last week when I went into an ICICI Bank ATM in Noida Ganga Shopping to withdraw Rs 10,000.

While operating the ATM I was thinking about all the stories (of bad experiences of ATM users) that I had read and hoped I shouldn't be the one telling any bad experience.

And the next second it happened!

No noise, nothing, and after several seconds of silence (which felt like hours) the machine displayed a message: ‘Network Error Please Try Later’, followed by the dreaded beep of the phone with one message received. 

Yes, the amount was debited from my account and no money in my hand.

I was left stranded.

To make matters worse, there was no guard in the ATM and the ACs were not working as well (not surprised why the guard was missing).

So drenched in sweat, I called the customer care who sympathised with me with “sorry, etc.” and said they will take the complaint.

After waiting for 15 minutes on the phone listening to ICICI auto ads, which play when you are put on hold, the phone got disconnected!

I was extremely agitated and called them again.

(The executive on the other end) said "Oh sorry sir, the system is having some issues today, wait I'll transfer the call to the person you were speaking to."

And then the person started with the same story again, "Sir, the system is quite slow so it's taking time, please hold the line."

Then she came back and asked if it was ok for her to take the complaint and inform me of the reference number (of the complaint) through an SMS.

I didn't oblige and she finally gave me a reference number (after 30 minutes from the time I first called them).

The SMS never arrived with the complaint number, but thankfully the money did, the next day.

Will the banking industry listen to all our woes and make visiting the ATM a pleasurable experience rather than a frightening one, where one has to pray before trying to make a transaction?

Photograph: Kind Courtesy Alpha/Creative Commons

Lead image used for representational purpose only. 

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What problems did you face and how did you deal with it?

Mail us your stories and advice at getahead@rediff.co.in (Subject: ATM woes) along with your NAME, AGE and LOCATION. We'll share the best ones right on Rediff.com.

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