News Can a Bank be held deficient in services if its ATM does not dispense Cash for the reason “Cash not available”? A consumer Court in Raipur has recently imposed a penalty of Rs.2500.00 on SBI for exactly the same reason overruling the arguments of SBI that
* The complainant was not its customer
* Failure of internet connectivity is not within its ambit, rather it is upon the internet service provider against whom, any complaint if any, should lie.
The Form countered SBI by saying that when Banks are charging for usage of ATMs for a whole year in advance and a client is Free to use any ATM he automatically becomes a customer.
The second point was countered with the reasoning that when the ATM itself was showing “No Cash Available” on 3 different dates and times how it can be a case of internet failure?
Moreover, when customers are penalised for no balance or less than minimum balance in their accounts, how can a Bank get away with no cash in the ATM? It being the first such judgement for ATM failure it is expected to generate a lot of interest in the matter. The incident happened in May 2017 , complained filed in June 2017 and the verdict was passed recently. It’s a reminder to our banker friends here to be more careful in loading Cash in ATMs especially before consecutive holidays to escape such penalty as well as customer dissatisfaction.
