ATM Trouble / Kuala Lumpur

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RHB Bank ATM Failure

On July 14th 2012 at about 10 a.m. I tried to withdraw 900 Malaysian ringgit at an ATM of RHB Bank at Raya Kota Shopping Mall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I inserted my PIN and the amount. After watching a too long time a screen which told me that my transaction is in progress, I got my credit card back, but no money.
Since I have no own mobile phone I had to organize one and called the RHB service number. It's very noise in the mall's background and the voice at the other end was very hard to understand. I had to request several times. I told the lady there what happened. She asked me seven [!] times for my credit card number. I told her three times, that this is sensitive data and I would not give it out. She just stereotypely asked me again and again. Later she asked me alternatively for my passport number [!], what is completely irrelevant in such a case. I asked her to check the ATM's transactions and gave her my account number (my proposal, not her's). I had to give it her three times, until she got it. Then she didn't know what to do. Eventually she told me to check my bank balance.

RHB Bank's service staff has obviously not the haziest clue how to solve such a problem. By the way: such events mustn't appear. A bank's ATM must be absolutely reliable. The same trouble I had already in Jakarta a few days before (BNI) and on Sumatra and Penang (Maybank) two years ago.

By the way: RHB Bank didn't even answer the email I sent to their support.

Until ATM transactions appear on the balance it can take two or more days. Since then I don't know if they debited my account or not. And, if, I have to take action to get my money back.

We 'll see the outcome.

Appendix

Finally it turned out that the account wasn't debited. That's quite a relief, because with the service's unprofessional behaviour it wouldn't be the easiest thing to get the money back in case of a debit. It's remarkable that such cases appeared repeatedly in Malaysia, partially in Indonesia as well and never in another country. But my personal experiences with bank staff in Southeast Asia always showed a very lack of competence from their side. The verymost bank clerks here really don't know what they do. In cases of irregularities they behave stereotype, buerocratic and reluctant to solve the problem. One clerk is asking another who also doesn't know a solution, and there is a lot of time wasting "blah blah blah" without a positive outcome. Because the clerks are in a position of relative strength, they feel comfortable in their ignorance.

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Published on July 14th, 2012

ATM Failure

Last update on February 9th, 2015

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