Depositing Cash at ATM, Possibility of a Miscount?

Lpayton on 30/11/2017 - 23:16
Last edited 30/11/2017 - 23:17

TLDR
Do you deposit bank notes into an ATN from time to time? Ever experienced a miscount by the machine?

Full ver

An elderly relative asked me to pay her bills as she isn't tech literate. Fine, I BPAY'ed from my acc, she gave me the amount in cash - $1000.
Had this cash in my wallet for a week to be deposited.
Today I went to a St George ATM with a cash deposit facility (the teller had a queue)
I inserted the $50 notes, and it told me its $900. Huh?
Was in a hurry to get to work and I thought machines normally doesn't get it wrong - I must have left the $100 at home somewhere.

Had a look see around home, its not there. Either a work colleague nicked it, or the machine possibly counted wrong?
Thus the question
If you use ATM to deposit cash, did the machine ever miscounted your cash amount?

Financial

Comments

  • orourke on 30/11/2017 - 23:28
    +5

    With the banks continually pushing people to use the ATMs for deposits (CBA & ANZ!) I have tried to deposit a significant sum of cash and it kept jamming. I don't trust it so I use the counter service.

    Edit: And it's an annoyance to me that the large banks are reducing counter staff numbers (despite queues) in favour of ATM's. I feel like there is no point staying with a big4 bank if they make branch services challenging, may as well use an online only/non-big4 bank.

    • payton on 30/11/2017 - 23:34
      +1

      looks like I'll be doing that from now on :|
      Will see what the bank rep says tomorrow

    • dcep on 01/12/2017 - 00:32
      +2

      use ing

      deposit at auspost

      the lady will count for you

    • Slippery Otter on 01/12/2017 - 08:08
      +1

      I've had issues in the past with the older gen CBA machines but since the new upgrades have taken place with touchscreens it's been better. I've deposited large amounts (over 6k) easily. Just have to get used to ATMs.

  • jimbobaus on 01/12/2017 - 00:17
    +11

    Go to the branch
    Every evening the machine is counted (automatically) and reconciled.
    If you deposited 1000 the machine should be “over” $100 and they will be able to accept your issue and assign it to you.

    Had an issue with a withdrawal once.
    Went in following day and was sorted within 20 mins once they checked the report and saw the machine was $50 over.

    • payton on 01/12/2017 - 00:25
      +2

      cheers, will do

  • PissLUR on 01/12/2017 - 00:26
    +2

    Did you count the money when your relative handed you the money?

    • payton on 01/12/2017 - 00:27
      +2

      yes, definitely had $1000 in hand, prior.

      • JimmyF on 01/12/2017 - 10:18
        +1

        Did you count it before putting it in the machine?

        Maybe you 'borrowed' some money from that section?

  • PissLUR on 01/12/2017 - 00:27
    +1

    You had the money in your wallet for a week. Did you spend it? Or someone else might have stolen it.

    • payton on 01/12/2017 - 00:31
      +1

      No, been using my cards for all my spends and lunches this month.
      There is one colleague near me who is one hell of an opportunistic cnut, but theft would be one level above his usual shenanigans

  • aragornelessar on 01/12/2017 - 00:35
    +2

    I do quite often - same situation, non-techie parents pay me cash and I pay their bills for them.

    At first I was very annoyed I had to use a machine to deposit cash, as I would've preferred face to face transactions but like @orourke says above, they started reducing their staff numbers. At one stage they renovated the North Sydney branch to remove the tellers and replace them with ATM machines… but kept the same staff to help people do online transactions. Like, huh? Anyways, I digress…

    I've only had one instance (in less than 100) where the machine had an issue. It wasn't a counting issue though - it simply broke while counting my notes. I went inside the bank and told them the ATM ate my deposit and they made a note of it and how much I had deposited. Apparently they then do a count/audit of the notes and then told me the adjustment would be made to my account.

    Another time, it said it had an issue with the notes I inserted - but I in fact held onto the notes as I mistakenly tried to insert the wrong set. It showed an error on the screen and then issued me with a statement, advising me to take it to the teller for adjustment. I forget what the statement said because I had $0 adjustment to do (since I held onto the deposit).

    Hope that helps - I would definitely let the bank know. They are scoundrels in the way they charge you fees and interest, but the one thing they have going for them is their checks and balances are supposed to make sure things like miscounts don't happen.

    • payton on 01/12/2017 - 19:42

      Cheers. Went to the branch, they said if the machine's $ amount isn't balanced, issue possibly will get resolved next week, else its a 4 week wait for further analysis.

  • Diji1 on 01/12/2017 - 01:04

    Can't you take their money and then Bpay or Bank transfer from your bank account instead of going to the bank with money?

    • payton on 01/12/2017 - 19:39
      +1

      Can't you take their money

      next time I'll get a Paypal reader and charge them c/card fee
      /jk

  • JIMB0 on 01/12/2017 - 06:40
    +1

    The machine will give you the option of returning all your "items" if you don't agree with the count. Then if some notes are stuck in it the machine won't accept anymore deposits until they fix it. Quite often some machines won't take a deposit. Even if you go to the teller they have a machine that counts your money.

  • Youfah Mizzum on 01/12/2017 - 09:15
    +1

    I deposited some cash via ATM just the other day & the machine miscounted. I didn't trust the software & machine to somehow make some adjustment for the miscounted cash, so I cancelled the deposit.
    I rearranged all my notes so they were all the same way around & tried again. By this time I had a line behind behind me of about 4 or 5 people. Inserted the cash again & all good.
    Next time if there's a miscount, cancel & check the notes are all facing the same way.

  • Baysew on 01/12/2017 - 09:29
    +2

    Depositing Cash at ATM, Possibility of a Miscount?

    Yes, you probably made a miscount!

    Especially if you are young and not literate in low tech items like cash.

    • payton on 01/12/2017 - 19:38
      +1

      Gold!

  • zonra on 01/12/2017 - 09:45
    +3

    Not miscounting, but I used to constantly have problems with ATMs not recognising notes when putting in large amount (of notes) despite saying that upto 50 notes is accepted.
    So I started splitting the cash up into smaller batches (still in one single deposit), so to deposit 2k, count and put in the first 500, once accepted, choose "Add more", add the next 500 and so on. Each time you get a confirmation so there less likely to be errors.
    Takes sligtly longer but saves me the doubt and headache.

    • payton on 01/12/2017 - 19:37
      +1

      I noticed even the tellers usually count the cash twice.
      The one time I didn't follow my OCD instinct and it bit me :|

  • JimB on 01/12/2017 - 10:03

    If you thought it was short changing you why did you proceed with the deposit/transaction?

    Recount it then and there to verify before the machine takes the money.

    • payton on 01/12/2017 - 19:35

      was in a hurry to get 2 work and thought the machine was probably right (noob mistake, I know)

  • t_c on 01/12/2017 - 10:34
    +2

    I once made a over the counter withdraw for around 7.5k to pay for a car, the teller used the note counter.

    When I was in the car I counted it, and there was one extra $50 note.

    I counted it like 5 times, couldn't believe it.

  • D3AB on 01/12/2017 - 10:44
    +1

    It happened to my wife when she deposited cash at the atm. It was at a branch however, so she went inside and told the floor staff and they lodged an inquiry. 2 days later they deposited the extra $50. Will never use the atm deposit feature again.

  • zyrex on 01/12/2017 - 12:15
    +1

    Yes they do miscount, happened to me before.
    I inserted $200 (x4 $50) and said there was only $150, two of the notes were really stuck together.

  • ol mate on 03/12/2017 - 08:32
    +1

    Had the same thing happen yesterday.

    Deposited $3500, it rejected the last 20 notes because there was a limit of 50 notes - fair enough, I can just do another deposit. Tried putting in only 50 notes, it counted 49. Cancelled, and tried putting it in smaller lots - $1k at a time, and figured the machine just didn’t like one of the notes.

    Strange thing was that the atm didn’t have consistency. One time it rejected the note before it showed the count on the screen, other times it just didn’t count it and (I assume) was just going to spit it back out if I cancelled the deposit.

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