Letters from the Equator

Has this ever happened to you?

I went to the ATM counter on 4 Aug 2007, slipped in my card, punched in the right numbers,… but the rm400 didn’t come out. So, intending to get my money - I tried again… but the money still didn’t come out.

So, I went to the next ATM machine, and it worked. The next thing I knew… the first machine didn’t issue me a return on one of the failed transactions. So I did what the average person would do - made a report with Maybank to investigate.

They took 2 WEEKS to decide that they were NOT going to return my money (from 7 Aug to 22 Aug). I had to take it up with the Financial Mediation Bureau instead.

I wrote a very sharp letter to FMB, explaining my situation, and they did the work to investigate further.

A man from Maybank did call me to ask me questions about what happened on that day. They were checking to see if I was actually a crook, based on the CCTV footage. I may or may not have given 100% accurate feedback - it was almost a month past, for crying out loud.

A series of emails and letters came back and forth, and nothing has happened. This is serious crime, even for RM400. I’m not exactly earning the best salary in the world, and I’m really pissed off with the whole situation.

If this has happened to you before, I’d like to know what you went through. Apparently my mom lost RM500 to Maybank in a similar way.

My wife who used to work in a bank said that I should have reported with the ATM slip on the very same day. Well, I reported on the very same day, but the ATM didn’t issue me a receipt. So how?

I’m thinking of submitting a police report, but I don’t know what good that would do… simply because the police probably won’t do anything about it. And it’s been so long already, I don’t know if it’s valid.

I’m just really frustrated, and I still want my money back.

Categorized as life