I've been hearing about scenarios some of my co-workers encountered with their ATM withdrawals, the very famous was they were being "debited," (no money came out from their ATM's, yet there were told that a certain amount of money were deducted on their account).
Some were shocked, because their ATM's were "eaten by the machine."
But mine was another experience really bothering.
Last night I tried making a withdrawal inside one popular mall in Mandaluyong and apparently, I was told by the machine that I "entered a wrong pin."
Never had any previous scenario before. And really...I do not know how to deal with it.
First thing that entered my mind was to report about the case and also inquired on how to resolve it.
So, it happened. I spoke to the operator and was told about a procedure that I will do to fix it.
I was in the mall making a call using my mobile phone. I don't know, are they existing pay phones inside? But I am in a hurry and worried. So, I dropped the idea of locating one.
Instructions were given, but since I am really uncomfortable with the setting, much of the information that I need to do were not understood. But there's one important detail that was pressed on my mind, I have to fix it using a personal computer.
I began thinking twice doing this. Why? Because I think that renting a computer was a waste of money.
Instead, I began resolving it by calling a co-worker for the instructions and tried accomplishing it using my mobile phone.
Well, I tried harder as in. But it seemed that things I need to click was not there.
Apparently because, our mobile phones has different settings compare to personal computers.
After a long process, I gave up. It was really tiring. I just told my wife to cook for our dinner, supposedly, I was tasked to buy, but because I can't withdraw and only has a hundred plus money on my wallet, I dropped the idea.
And then came another day, at the office later this morning I called for an operator assistance and we were able to unlocked it. I was actually instructed to check after but unfortunately, it was a failure.
So, I called them again and asked for the nearest branch, found one and went there.
The process almost lasted an hour. A 15 to 20 minutes were spent waiting for my number to be called and the remaining time which was I believe too long were allotted waiting for an email response to fix the problem.
I was just lucky to have assisted by a very friendly bank assistant (Maria Zarina Gumba.."Yna," for short), It wasn't actually done but I took the liberty of vacating the bank.
At the time, I was still working and just left the office to personally visit and fixed the problem.
Yna and I exchanged numbers, and we agreed to update me for the progress.
After a while, I was told it was fixed.
The very first thing I did was to visit the nearest ATM Machine in the building...but again on the machine monitor reflected that I again "entered a wrong pin."
I was so dissapointed. I called Yna again and told her about it.
And I end up, going back again to the bank and there what I did was to do an over the counter withdrawal of the only remaining money on my account.
The sad part was, I need to visit the bank again on Monday to make another "over the counter," transaction. And to make the matters worst...drop by again on Friday for securing a new pin, standard operating procedure was 5 working days. This was because, the request was coming from their main office.
And again, I was left with a choice to follow and wait.
I also realized at the end that bank transactions cannot be done by just making a call or by just visiting their website...one that we always have to consider is still a face to face interaction in resolving this.
Hopefully, everything went well after I performed all those mentioned tasks.
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PROGRESS
A week after, finally I was able to change my pin.
I was then assisted by a bank employee named..."Yna."
I am now excited to go to the ATM machine and withdraw directly!
