Beware:ATMs prey to power cuts

As if ATMs did not offer enough troubles, unprecedented power cuts only make matters worse for customers. Jeevan Krishna, an employee with Pegasus, a pharmaceutical company, was right in the midst of a transaction when a power cut played spoilsport. The result — he was stuck without a card for nearly three months.

“I’d tried using my Canara Bank card at an Andhra Bank ATM, but due to the power cut, my card got stuck,” Jeevan says. He adds that although the power was restored in 15 minutes, what ensued was an endless struggle to retrieve his card. What made matters worse was the fact that it was an inter-bank transaction, and Jeevan was made to shuttle between the two banks before finally being issued a new card three months later.

Many customers admit that getting back one’s card from within the machine is a cumbersome process. S. Sairam, an employee of Wipro, faced a similar situation when he tried using his SBI card at an HDFC ATM. “When I tried contacting the HDFC officials, I was told that my card had been destroyed since it belonged to another bank,” he says. Sairam then had to apply for a new card with the bank, which he received after three months. “Till I got my new card, I had to pay frequent visits to the bank for cash withdrawals, which was a big hassle,” Sairam adds.

Customers complain that the least bank officials could do is to ensure uninterrupted power supply to their offsite ATMs as well, and spare their customers of the unwanted hassle. “What if my card gets stuck again?” asks Sairam. “It is too much of a trouble to repeatedly run from pillar to post for what is rightfully mine.”

Neeraj Jha, public relations officer, HDFC Bank downplays the matter by saying, “It must have been one of those isolated incidents where the card was stuck when there was a power failure. But our ATMs have an almost fool-proof power supply system in place.”

But some bank officials claim that there is nothing they can do about power cuts. They do have a procedure in place if an account holder’s card is stuck in a machine. “In cases of technical snags like a link or power failure, the card is retained by the machine,” says Shameen, operations manager of Axis Bank. “If the card belongs to our bank, the person can collect it by furnishing their ID the next day.”

While this may hold true for same bank transactions, in cases of inter-bank transactions, it is a different story altogether. “Only if the card is hot listed (blocked), is it destroyed. However, if the card has not been hot listed by the original bank it is returned to the account holder when he furnishes the appropriate identification proof,” she says.