What happens when an alliance ATM eats your checks or money orders

Introduction

I had a brain fart last week.  I was depositing some Moneygram money orders into “Crappy Bank’s” ATM.  In the past, Crappy Bank’s ATMs couldn’t read Moneygram money orders; I’ve always had to type in the amount.  It’s worse when the money order’s ink is so light that the ATM doesn’t even give me the option to type in the amount and just spits it right out.  Oh did I mention that I can’t even put 2 of them in at the same time – it’ll just spit both of them out, so I have to deposit it 1-by-1, which takes a verrrry long time.

ATM eats the money orders

Back to my brain fart – I somehow thought I’d save time by, not only putting 2 Moneygrams into the ATM machine, but another source’s money orders TOGETHER into the ATM.  Yes, I stacked 10 money orders – 2 MG’s and 8 other MO’s.   Crappy Bank’s ATM actually can read a stack of other MO’s, so I think that’s why i got complacent on this trip.  Anyway, I fed all 10 money orders into the machine.  Then I heard the machine trying to sort the money orders.  After a couple of minutes, it sounds like it wants to spit the money orders back out, but it couldn’t.  Then it sounded like it tried to count them again.  Then it sounded like it wanted to regurgitate them.  After 5 minutes of this, I get a big box on the ATM saying something like, “Your deposit could not be processed.  Please contact your financial institution.” 

Crappy Bank’s ATM

What I forgot to mention above was that I didn’t use Crappy Bank’s ATM card – I had actually used “Slightly Better’s” ATM card.  You see – both banks are in the same alliance, and so I could deposit cash/checks into my Slightly Better’s bank account using Crappy Bank’s ATM machines and vice versa.  This hasn’t been an issue in the past since I didn’t have brain farts back then.  But now we have an issue.

Slightly Better Bank

Luckily, Crappy Bank was still open, and after telling a rep what happened, he told me to contact Slightly Better Bank asap.  That’s what I did.  They then told me I had to visit a branch to fill out a form.  Luckily the bank was still open, so I drove over there and the bank manager was able to help me fill out the computerized form.  I had to give him all the details – I had to give him the amount of every check/money order and who the check/mo was from.  I had to tell him that 2 of the mo’s were from Moneygram and the other 8 were from ABC.  I did NOT want to tell him this, but it was necessary.  When he was done with the form, I had to sign the form and another affidavit/notorized form.

When I was done, I asked him how long this would take.  He said “up to 10 business days.”  UGH!  That’s a long float time.  What’s worse is now I’ll have eyes on my account from both Crappy Bank and Slightly Better Bank; that’s what I’m most concerned about.

Aftermath

Five days later, it seems Crappy Bank, the owner of the ATM, gave me credit for the deposit instead of Slightly Better Bank.  I don’t know why that is since I used Slightly Better Bank’s ATM card?!?  How did they even know which account number to deposit the money into?  Pretty much a big mystery that I don’t plan on figuring out.  If I had known this was gonna happen at the start, I would have just filed a form at Crappy Bank.  FACEPALM!

Lessons Learned

1. Don’t have brain farts if you can help it
2. Don’t mix and match different money orders and deposit them all at once, especially if you know the ATM can’t read one of the money orders
3. Try to use the bank’s ATM – Crappy Bank rep told me it would have been resolved easier if I had used Crappy Bank’s debit card instead of an alliance’s debit card
4. Even if you didn’t use crappy bank’s ATM card, just file a complain with Crappy Bank anyway, instead of the ATM card’s bank.