Colombia Expat Forum

paladino
Joined 2011
Posts: 127

10 years ago

ATM problem

10 years ago

Yesterday, I had an unrewarding experience with a Banco Davivienda ATM aka Cajero Automatico.

Here is the overview and what transcribed.

I am in Colombia on a tourist card, I don't have a Colombian bank account since I don' t yet have residencia. So when I need some more pesos I just whip out my USA bank debit card and extract some pesos from the USA, yes with exorbitant fees of course.

So I go into the Davivienda cajero booth [a location I have used on several other occassions] follow the prompts and navigate the options to extract some plata, that's money in Colombian speak BTW for anyone not in Colombia.

So the machine does everything normal and starts to churn counting out the bills... but after about 6 seconds of churning the cash door does NOT open and the system blows out a receipt which confirms the amount I asked for but does also say 'No Pago' due to technical difficulties.

For anyone who has every hit an ATM with ran out of cash it was like that transaction.. The machine tried to dispense some cash, could not and aborted the transaction.

But because of the sounds the machine made I suspected I was going to get screwed on this deal so sure enough, I waited over-nite, [I did not try another transaction so as not to cause any confusion in documenting my suspicions] and the next day, today I logged into m web portal of my USA bank account sure enough there is the ATM withdrawal [in USD] and the two banking charges for the ATM withdrawl.. yes Bank Of America is horrible for using their debit cards abroad.

So I am lucky, I have a laptop, a cell modem for internet access and my Colombian biz partner with me not to mention the bank is like 60 steps away. So I take my ATM receipt, my laptop and my Colombian mouthpiece and we visit the bank to challenge this bogus transaction.

Let explain for those that don't know how ATMS work, there is a very distinct, high serialized process whereby a request for money actually gets you cash and then charges your account and that process has been around for over 30 years with hundreds of billions of transactions using that model.

For instance there is a multi-step process including hardward sensors that are installed in every ATM to prevent this from happening. If at any time the physical money is not dispensed or is not retrieved from the ATM there is not charge to your account. In this case the dispensing door never opened [one sensor], two the money did not dispense from the cash holding banks inside the machine [another sensor and combined hardward software step] and lastly the money was never physically removed from the dispenser door area [there is a sensor that confirms you removed the cash and if you don't remove the cash the machine swallows the money, marks the transaction for management review and when reviewed you would recieve automatic retention of those funds in question once reviewed].

well as you saw me say. the machine did not perform any of the delivery mechanisms and YET my account was debited for the transaction. Get it? I am a retired software engineer of 27 years working with computers and I can tell you that if their system did this to me then it is doing it to thousands of people per year. They had to program around the system to get the system to wrongly complete the transaction as that is NOT the way the software is installed and delivered from the banking / ATM industry. In short I believe Davivienda are either incompetent or corrupt and I do not make that claim lightly.

No one at the bank could even start to comment on what happened, they just had to get on the phone and start going up the chain demanding that my transaction be recalled and my money returned.... it's going to take 8 days they say. The icing on the cake... no one from the bank mgr, secondary and finally customer service clerk every said 'Sorry about that, that should not happen.' JAJAJA

How many tourists, Colombians etc per year do not have the time, resources and expertise that I do to prevent being ripped off? many thousands IMHO.

Keep those ATM receipts folks and never OPT-OUT of a receipt with Colombian banks IMHO.

Last Comment: This experience is another true experience for myself and my business partners of how incredibly incompetent, non-competitive and perhaps mendacious the banking industry is in Colombia. I will not go into all the details of my most recent two week long process to get a wire transfer credited to my partners account. It was a nightmare of bureaucracy and frustration in short.

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