Beware of Your Withdrawal Money!!

Picture 1

Picture 2

This incident happened on today morning (02 July 2008). On my way to the office, I went to the Damansara Utama (Also known as Old Uptown) cimbank to withdraw RM500. As usual I count the money every time I made the transaction. Unfortunately for me, I found two pieces of RM50 teared off into two parts. The money was arranged firmly. The note was on second and eight layer.

I was so upset because I have no proof that the ATM gave me the ripped money since the ATM machine was out of receipt too. After much hesitation, I finally decided to go to cimbank to complain about the incident knowing that I may not get back my money (maybe). But at least I can caution them of such incident. When I told of my situation to the cimbank Customer Service Representative, to my surprise, I was informed that I'm not the first victim. It seems that similar cases have occurred before. The lady explained that it is the malfunction of the ATM and the money may accidentally get ripped in half.

I believe this is the new technique of cheating money, done by the people who are responsible of placing the money into the ATMs. In the stack of money which is to be placed into the ATM, one ripped RM50 note is placed nicely, for every one note taken out of the stack of money (to replace the unvalued teared notes). With that done, every one ripped note would be counted by the machine as normal notes.

I may be wrong about how and why it happened, but I would like to warn everyone about this incident. Please be careful when withdrawing money from the ATM (it may happen to other banks as well) and do count your money to be sure. If such an incident really happened to you (*touch wood*), please do call up the bank to complain about this. If everyone keeps quiet about this, the bank may be unaware of such incidents and the people responsible may just continue doing what they do without getting caught! Even if it is actually because of the ATM malfunctioning, the bank should know about this and there is also a chance of you getting your money back.

Best Regards,

Mohd Azri

*Picture 1 - Two RM50 notes. The note ripped into two.

*Picture 2 – The closer view of the money