ATMs Infallible No More |
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By: Eknaath Nagarkar Posted: 2010-06-15 08:55:51 |
| ATMs have been around for quite some time now and we have been using them without any problems so far and always under the firm belief coupled with cool confidence that the system is flawless.The modus operandi employed in the latest ATM-fraud reported in various newspapers last week, wherein 100-rupee notes were reportedly loaded in a 500-rupee compartment of the machine was indeed shocking. Besides exposing the inherent weaknesses in the system it has raised a few inconvenient questions the banking system needs to address urgently.Just imagine.If this defrauder were to slip in just one or two pieces of lower denomination notes at a time. While the recipient of such notes would have been hard-put to prove it to the bank of such short receipt, banks would also have stood their ground perhaps asserting that such a mistake can never happen with their computer-based ATMs.ATMs have been in existence for over 5 decades in the west. Surely one would expect it to have stood the test of time by now. One can understand the machine allowing fake notes to be fed -size of the note being the same, as it happened in some of the ATMs of State Bank of India in the North. But in the instant case smaller notes were fed into compartments of higher denomination notes. This being the simplest method of cheating one could think of this ought to have been anticipated and safeguards should have been in place to prevent it from happening. Are we to understand this possibility had not occurred to anyone concerned?Fortunately the defrauder chose to perpetrate the crime in one go. In one way it is good for the customers as also for the banks because the crime could be detected immediately.The overall situation stands radically changed by reason of this one fraud. If the customer wanting to withdraw Rs 2000 gets 4 notes of 100-each in place of 4 pieces of 500-each today, he may unhesitatingly approach the Bank and report it straightaway without any inhibition. And the banker also is in no position to reject such a claim banking on the infallibility of ATMs as in the past.-----oxo------I left Bank of India in 1995 after serving that glorious institution for over 32 years under voluntary Retirement Scheme and took up acting as a career. I've been writing for DECCAN HERALD, MID-DAY, FREE PRESS JOURNAL & AFTERNOON DESPATCH & COURIER as also late Minoo Masani's magazine FREEDOM FIRST. And of late for this popular website. |
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