Forgetful ATM users get cash back 11 years on

BANK customers who mistakenly walked away from cash machines without taking their money more than 10 years ago could still be refunded years after Lloyds admitted a glitch.

Thousands of people are thought to be due a refund, five years after the bank assured customers that such payments were made automatically.

Having realised that this was not the case, Lloyds is understood to have been gradually refunding the amounts, plus interest, to people who used their machines as long ago as 2006.

Among those astonished to receive a cheque last week was Steve Titman, 34, who absent-mindedly walked away from a cash machine in Peterborough, Cambs, without taking his money in early 2008. He said it was a “shock” to get back his £20 – along with £6.80 interest. “Obviously I have no recollection of leaving the money in the cashpoint,” he said. “I think I was most surprised that this dated back to 2008.”

Cash is sucked back into an ATM if it is not taken within 30 seconds to prevent it from being stolen. When this happens, most banks refund the credit to customers’ accounts.

An industry-wide rule introduced in April 2011 by Link, the ATM operator, required all banks and building societies to automatically refund customers who did not take their money.

The following year, HSBC and RBS, which owns Natwest, carried out refund schemes, having previously only paid back money if customers asked for it. They said they would track down customers, going back to January 2005, at an estimated cost of a combined £18 million.

However at the time, Lloyds said it did not need to do so as it refunded customers automatically. It subsequently discovered that some payments had not been made at the time and began sending money back via customers’ own banks in 2014. Lloyds said the refunds were gradually being made by the other banks.

A spokesman for Lloyds Banking Group said: “In 2014, we conducted a review of transactions that took place at our ATMS between 1st January 2006 and 31st March 2011. Where we identified that a customer had experienced a cash retract, but not previously been reimbursed for it, we made payments to the customers’ banks.”

The average amount Lloyds is reimbursing is £70.