Bank customers appeal for protection over rampant dispense error by ATM

Some bank customers have urged the Federal Government to save them the pains of rampant dispense error by the Automated Teller Machines.
Those who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria in separate interviews on Monday in Lagos, said that the machines had become a source of frustration, especially during emergencies.
They said that those responsible for ATM operations should be sanctioned due to the pains it had caused customers.
Andrew Bankole of Tigbegbe Street, Ojokoro-Ijaiye, Lagos, said he was confused when an ATM in a bank at Ahamadiyya in Ijaiye debited him but failed to pay him.
Bankole said that he needed the money to pay for the medical bill of his wife at Ahamadiyya Hospital, Ijaiye.
According to him, all efforts to convince the bank officials to reverse the transaction because the N20,000 requested for was all he had failed.
He said: “I was told it would reverse the transaction after a while but it never did until after three days.
“I had to borrow money from friends and neighbours to offset the medical bill.”
Another customer, Francis Obaro, of a Federal Government agency in Abuja narrated how he nearly missed a visa interview because of a dispense error by an ATM.
Obaro said that for a fault that was not his he had to borrow to pay for the visa fee.
At Ijora, Lagos security officials had to intervene when an ATM in an old generation bank failed to pay a young man who insisted he must get his money.
Dupe Atoki, the Director-General of the Consumer Protection Council, told NAN that the council was aware of the development in the banking industry.
Atoki said that the council had been in consultation with regulators of various sectors in the country to ensure consumers’ interests were protected.
She added that the council decided to embark on sectoral collaboration in order to achieve best practices.
Atoki said that the banking sector was on the radar of the council.
She said: “We are collaborating with the CBN as the regulator of the banking industry to find a solution to the problem.
“We just need to escalate it to a level where we need to get quick results.”
Kofo Ogunruku, the Corporate Communications and Public Relations Specialist, Interswitch Limited, Lagos, declined comment on the issue.