When we got back from Italy last month I checked on my bank account and WOW what a surprise! Six different times that we took money out of the ATM it took it out twice out of our account!(close to $2000.00) I have always used my ATM abraod and never have had any problem until now. This also happened to someone else in our group. Our bank is "looking into it" but so far we have not gotten our money back! Has this happened to anyone else??

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kim,

I am currently in discussion with a bank in Italy.
My limit is 250 euro a day, I tried at one bank ( and by accident pushed the 150 Euro button) and didn't get any cash.
It was charged onto my account though.
I went back to the bank and they knew their machine was broken( it closed down after giving me money) but I still haven't received the refund!!!
But have faith I will.
I have tried to take out double..and the banks don't let you so may be easy to fight!

Cooking in Florence
www.divinacucina.com

We had one incident where we tried to withdraw and could not because the link didn't go through. We came back later in the day and withdrew from the same machine. When we got back to the US, both the attempted withdrawl and the valid withdrawl were charged to our account.

We protested and the bank approved after 4 months. So if you hang in, you may get it corrected.

- marta

Could all of you tell us where in Italy this happened?

Four Months??You have to be kidding! I guess I would not care so much about waiting if it were just one withdrawl but it was six of them! It happenend in Florence and the Amalfi Coast.For some reason we didn't have any trouble in Rome.

Mine happened in Florence, once at a bank I have used before and never had any problems.
I think keeping your reciepts is a good idea...save them until you see your account!

Cooking in Florence
www.divinacucina.com

My incident happened in Venice. We never had problems in Florence, Tuscany or Cinque Terre. I went back and checked my records. Here is the process I went through.

We returned from Italy on Sept 12th. Shortly after that, I checked my statement on the web. That is when I noticed the two deductions. On 9/16, we visited the bank and filled out an ATM transaction dispute claim and we put the reason that it looked like we were charged twice. On 9/19, we got back a letter saying they investigated and said that the transactions occured separately. The bank records had one occuring on 9/10 and the second on 9/11. Of course, with the 9 hour difference between Italy and US, the two times were different days. We did visit the ATM two times, one unsuccessfully in the morning in Vencice which happened to be 9/10 in USA and the successful one in the afternoon in Venice which was 9/11 in USA. You may be lucky and when they check the time records they will see your double charges at the same time and it may get resolved within a week.

We went back to our bank and explained what happened again. At this point, the bank started to doubt us. Why didn't you say that at first? You need to fill out the form again and we will investigate again. We had the receipt of the successful one and included a copy of that with our dispute. On Nov 29, we got a letter saying a possible error occured, they were crediting our account with the amount in dispute BUT the investigation was not complete. They would continue and should the investigation prove that no error occured, the amount would be deducted again from our account. The investigation would be completed by Feb 12, 2003. There was also a line about if we recalled these transactions were valid, we could withdraw the claim. (They bolded it in the letter). In January, we got a letter saying the investigation was closed and it was an error.

This was the first time we disputed an ATM charge. We have been a customer of the bank for 20 years but that didn't seem to make a difference. Our bank was small and local when we first opened the account but is now a huge bank. Our dispute had to go to California for investigation. But in the end, it was resolved.

If you used the ATM only once, you probably have a great chance of getting it resolved quickly. But if the transaction was unsuccessful and you tried again, then it might be more difficult. In the future, I probably won't use the same ATM again if it fails. If I have to submit a dispute, I will be very clear on what exactly happened instead of guessing what happened.

- marta

well... we are at a huge bank that so far as managed to lose the affidavid twice! We also did not save our receipts. This could be a costly lesson! Our double debits were also when it didn't go through the first time.

quote:

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Originally posted by l&w:
Four Months??You have to be kidding!

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Standard, in Italy.

Alice Twain
--
– Che peccato, signora: lei ha partorito e suo marito non c’era.
– Oh, se è per quello non c’era nemmeno quando sono rimasta incinta!
          Leo Ortolani, Rat Man, “Il primogenito”

Thanks to all you vigilant folks who actually save your receipts and check your bank statements. After I read this thread, I checked my husband's statements. He had been in Spain late April. Sure enough...he had had problems withdrawing from one machine and put the request through 3 times....on the third try, he got his euro, but our bank statement reflected all withdrawals...700 dollars overcharged! I filed a dispute claim today, and hope to get this resolved, but if it were not for Slow Trav, we'd be totally clueless.

We're leaving for Sardinia on Monday..I'll be sure to use different ATM's if I have a problem. So, thanks again!

I am not sure how this works practically.Suppose I go to a ATM and request 200.I press the buttons and nothing comes out,the receipt will say $200
so at that point it is my word against the bank.If it is during banking hours I would go inside and complain.But why would they believe I didn't get the money? I suppose the count may be off but the possibility for an employee cheating seems very real.
Maybe I should just get travelers checks? RR

>>Maybe I should just get travelers checks?>>

Interestingly, these reports of the double charges are the first I've read, ever. I'm going to start warning clients to keep receipts and to not try again on one machine if it doesn't work the first time...but I still think given the thousands of ATM transactions done by tourists daily in Europe, it's still the best way to go. Robert...travelers checks are increasingly difficult in Europe, in my experience. Lots of places don't take them, and it's hard to hit a bank or AX office at the right time; invariably it seems they are closed for lunch or for the day. I traveled in England a few years ago with a friend -- she had travelers check and I had an ATM card; I was frequently having to lend her money as she had trouble hitting banks at the right time to cash the checks. Not as much of a problem in a large city, but it was indeed a problem when driving in countryside.

SALLY WATKINS, Certified Travel Counselor
sally@century-tvl.com
www.sallywatkins.com
Italy Specialist
Certified Swiss Specialist
Certified Aussie Specialist
My business depends on referrals - please tell someone today!

I'm a little confused as to what happened. An attempt was made to withdraw cash, and when the transaction aborted (timeout when the machine attempted to make the link but failed to do so within a certain time limit)

- the machine didn't register the failure?
or: according to the receipt the machine registered the failure, but according to the bank's log there was no failure?

A second problem mentioned was the failure of the machine to discharge cash, which is a slightly different problem, since the machine might well have discharged a receipt in this situation that indicated a cash withdrawal; in this case the receipt and the log would match, but not the cash balance at day's end.

Which of these situations occured in the original post? What was the name of the Bank in Italy? Was it a major bank?

I'm asking because if ATMs in Italy are discharging receipts that mismatch with the bank's log, (or even if the bank simply verbally claims there is a mismatch) then the Cirrus, InterAc, and Plus networks ought to be notified immediately.

Does anyone know what, if any, laws apply in these situations? I assume if this happened in the US that some laws would protect consumers -- maybe I assume too much? But internationally, is there any law or agreement we should be aware of?

Answer to Moth's questions. This is the Spain incident related just above.

At 12:30pm My husband inserted his ATM card in the machine. Machine said something like "can't process at this time" "inactive account" or something weird. (This happens frequently to us when we're in Italy, so we know to just end the transaction and try again right away.)

Machine spits out receipt. This one says: Importe: 500,00 eur (Equivalent 83.19pts)
"Error: 0603 Operacion denegada por el emisor"
"Operacion Cancelada"

At 12:32 he tries again. Again, no can do. This time receipt says: "Importe: 500,000 euro
Equivalent 91.52pts" (quite a jump in rates in two minutes!) "Error: 0402, Numero Personal Cliente Erroneo"

At 12:34, a third attempt. This one is successful, machine spits out cash, receipt says "300,00 euro, Equivalent 83.193" No error messages.

The bank statements show three withdrawals for 341.20 dollars.

The receipts have the CajaSur logo on them, not sure which network that is but when I went to our bank yesterday I was told that it uses the Plus network.

I spoke to several people at the bank and was utterly frustrated by their incomprehensible explanations for how such things can happen, especially when we have a limit on how much cash we can withdraw in any one day, which I wrongfully assumed was its own loss limitation process. Wrong! In effect,if you get the cash, you can't get anymore. But if you don't, they just keep taking it out of your account without regard to the limit.

Electronic errors, I was told. Nothing to do to prevent this in the future, just keep your receipts, check your statements and file a dispute. In the meantime, one could seriously run right out of cash if all the aborted transactions resulted in withdrawals!

I asked the bank to notify the Plus network, they agreed but I know they won't. I'll try today if I can scratch a tuck of time.

Anyway, I thought about traveler's checks, too, but they are a royal pain to deal with now as Sally says. So, I'll use only one ATM at a time, withdraw the maximum amount, try not to run out of cash and call the bank's automated line frequently to check on my transactions.

In my situation the machine did not spit out a error receipt. It just didn't go through or so I thought. I then tried again on the same machine and it went through but debited both from my account. I can't remember right now what the name of the bank was but i do remember it was a very common one I saw everwhere. On three other occasions I did not do it twice but it just took it out twice from my account. (with the same transaction numbers).I still have not heard anything from my bank and it has been over a month!I still would only use an ATM for money in Europe. We travel a lot and this is the first time this has happenend to us. I will just be much more careful about saving receipts and writing everything down next time. As of now I am out just about $2000.00.....which would buy two more tickets to Italy!

Katherine, you are lucky you got a receipt. I did not get a receipt when it failed. The screen will usually say something about 'link' and the transaction is immediately stopped. I have had this happen several times on both of our trips to Italy (2001 and 2002). I usually do not try again at the same bank on the same day except for the time I got double charged. I do remember even trying at a second bank that morning. I didn't get charged from that bank, only the one I returned to later in the day.

Although a little more time-consuming and dictated by business hours, is it not an option to enter a bank and get cash over the counter using a debit or credit card?

A similar thing happened to a friend of mine, she also did not get a receipt, so she took a picture of the error message on the screen of the ATM. The bank back at home laughed at her, but they also admitted that it was proof of the error. I thought it was rather a good idea!

Shannon

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

During bank hours I would go inside and complain if an error occured,but I believe that any cash obtained inside would be considered a cash advance
even if they would accept an atm card.RR

Well, I'm leaving for Rome/Sardinia/Rome tomorrow and am bringing three different ATM cards, to use at different ATM's at different banks! I'll need more than receipts to keep track...but, I love the camera idea.

My daughter called today from Roma..said it is a "riscaldato", hot as a cauldron, so dress lightly fellow travellers. Some places have run right out of ice.

I'll keep you posted on the ATM experience if I can....Arrivederci!

Guess we were lucky and testimony that sometimes ATM's don't give problems. We had several times when for one reason or another we could not get money from ATMs--but having been in Italy many times and knowing that it is not atypical to get strange messages, we just went on to other machines. Just checked my latest bank statement (on line) and all of our withdrawals came through with no double dipping or improper deductions. We did have this happen in Turkey but just contacted the credit union who immediately credited us with the disputed amount prior to even contacting the Turkey bank. Never heard another word so guess they straightened it out between them. Guess again we were lucky to have things go so smoothly.

Jane
http://www.janeandken.com
Tanzania, Peru, China, Italy Journals and Pictures

Is it possible that the improper deductions are the result of using an ATM that does not have the proper network such as Plus,Cirrus which is linked to your card? I called my bank today and they gave me a toll free number to call from Italy if there is a problem RR