When banks stole your money ~ My iLife :)

When banks stole your money

Have you experienced being stolen by your bank?

Well, it's about time to be wary and vigilant as you put your card in any convenient ATM machines because you never know, one day, you might also experience what I had been through.

Last December, it has become a tradition for me and my wife to go to Divisoria in preparation for the Christmas season. We go there without cash in hand as long we had our precious ATM card with us. We just scout for any available ATM machine inside or outside the mall. This time, we chose Equitable Bank because it is an affiliate of the BPI and the only available bank that's not been offlined yet. We waited patiently even if there was a long line of people waiting for their turns. To our dismay, no money was dispensed from the machine. And an error said that the "machine was unavailable."

I have a suspicion that the machine went offline. So I went to another bank to verify my account while I let my wife stayed in front of the ATM machine for the hope of having the machine dispensed the money I've withdrawn. When I verified, I proved that I was right. I was debited with PhP2,000 pesos.

I approached a bank personnel of Equitable bank and reported the matter. He advised us to report what happened to BPI through its hotline number, 89-100. So we called up BPI and they gave us a sort of a reference number that will be recorded by them so we will be able to follow up our complaint. We called them after a week but the phone attendant told us that nothing had been debited from my account and instead file our complaint directly to Equitable bank in Divisoria branch where we used the ATM machine.

I was a bit mad for that conversation because for me, it is their responsibility to follow-up the incident with their partner bank and verify the matter for further investigation. In the first place, we reported the matter to them immediately so that they can make possible actions on it. The solution should be in their hands already but unfortunately, nothing has happened yet.

After almost 5 months, we are still following up the matter through 89-100 and they only gave us the same feedback over and over again that the company is still verifying the incident. It's been months and my wife got her blood pressure on a scale talking with these operators who kept on repeating the same lines. They couldn't even give other suggestions on how they could speed up the process. They just reassuring us of nothing.

ATM or Automated Teller Machine was invented to facilitate the public with easy banking service. But with this type of scenario where debited account was no longer in the vocabulary of these banks was really a violation of public trust and consumer's rights. And it's a bit alarming. What If you withdraw a big amount of money, will it make a difference?

These and many more questions hounded me. This only reflects of how some companies do their businesses. They never took care of its loyal customers, they are only after the money that you can give and the quality of service is at stake. It's only a small amount of money but we felt that we've been stolen.

So Beware...you might be their next victim.

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2007-04-23