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Mob Psycology..........

10 November 2008 Be the first to comment

Retired member

It's interesting to note that people queue up outside faulty ATMs that dispense twice the amount of cash. Technology has its limitations and it's bound to go wrong at times, just like its creator. Homosapiens want anything that’s doled out free - whether it is of any real use to them- No wonder that there was a long line, when ATMs start dispensing "free" cash because of technical glitches. The withdrawals could be tracked to the accounts & reversed/debited for the excess cash, but people like the thrill they experience, when they feel that, they have got something more than they had bargained for, never mind, if this is going to be taken back. This is because of peer pressure and mob psychology- we tend to copy what others do, or, when something sensational like this happens, forget all logic and jump into the bandwagon.

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204 opinions 62 members 08 February 2023

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A Finextra member

12 November 2008

Does anyone know of any cases where the banks have seriously gone after the punters to retrieve the cash, notwithstanding the great Halifax Philips 6601 Lottery Dispenses of 1988? I am not sure they would unless it was for a tidy sum. For a start, they can only really have a go at reclaming the funds from their own customers. For other bank's customers, they only have a PAN. They would have difficulty claiming it back across LINK - "please sir Mr Link, our ATM dispensed too much cash, could you ask the issuing bank to ask for it back off the punter and then send it on to us, ta?" Don't think so, but would like to be proved wrong.

It is rarely a technical problem, unless you consider a technical problem to involve idiot branch staff sitting on cassettes in an attempt to close them, because they are trying to load £20 notes into the £10 slot, and they just don't fit; or the same thing happening at cash fulfilment depots, where the boddies sitting on the cassettes are that much bigger.

It seems to me that far too many glitches are blamed on technical mishaps, when they are really down to people just not taking the right sort of care. Doesn't look as good in the newspapers though!

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Joris Lochy Product Manager at Intix | Co-founder at Capilever