Siam Commercial Bank Atms

[MAN2SIN2BKK]

Greetings All

On Sunday 17 July 2011 I tried to make a 10,000 Baht withdrawal from the Siam Commercial ATM at the Future Park Rangsit branch and the transaction took some time and then came back "Transmission Error, do you require any other service?" I pressed no and my card was returned with no cash. I went to another ATM close by and made the 10,000 withdrawal OK.

Yesterday, Tuesday 19th I tried to make another 10,000 withdrawal at Siam Commercial ATM at the Rangsit Khlong Sam branch and received the same message "Transmission Error, do you require any other service?" I pressed no and again my card was returned....... no cash.

This time I went online with HSBC and found that both the "failed" transactions had registered and the funds had been removed from my account.

I went to the branch of Siam Commercial and they contacted the head office but they would not take responsibility has its an offshore ATM card; I have contacted HSBC and they are investigating the complaint but estimate that it will take 30 - 45 days to get resolved and only then will I see the money back on my account.

I am posting this to find out if anyone else in the expat community has had this problem and as a warning

Thanks

[beano2274]

I had the same thing happen to me at a Bangkok Bank ATM where I work, I bank with them. I tried to get 20,000baht and it came up with the same message, I then checked my account hours later and found the money had been taken out. My wife phoned the bank and informed them, they told me to wait a few days, but within a day the money had been credited as they had checked the transactions from the ATM Machine and seen it had not paid out.

I would personally get the Bank to check the payout slips from the ATM to prove that the money was not paid out. Actually they could dial into the machine from another location and see if the money was paid out.

Edited July 20, 2011 by beano2274

[MAN2SIN2BKK]

Hi Beano2274; thanks for your input here, hopefully my case will be resolved quickly as well but maybe it'll take a bit longer as my HSBC ATM card is from Hong Kong. I'll ask my wife to call SCB head office directly to see if they will do the dial up as you suggest

[CharlieH]

Like any "till" they know how much cash was in the machine and can easily tell if the cash has gone or not, a simple "balance" process.

Total transactions deduct from cash balance = they have too much cash.

May take a little time but feel sure they will sort it for you.

Good luck

[aurelius]

The return of funds is simpler for an on-us error than for an inter-bank error, and an international error is more difficult, but in anycase, VISA has well established procedures for such cases and there are clear service level agreements between the banks governing how long they are allowed to take in responding to such claims. Most likely what happened is a time out error - the request to deduct the funds got to your bank and was approved, but on the return journey the SCB ATM waiting to receive the OK timed out and so it reported the error to the screen and didn't dispense the cash. When HSCB does a settlement with VISA they will find that this transaction is not matched (HSCB's got money to give to SCB, but SCB is not asking for it) and it will be cleared through an error handling process.

Just make sure your bank knows, in case they don't pick it up.