Overview
Fellow Malaysian who draws money from Maybank ATM machines might want to count their notes each time they withdraw money from any Maybank ATM machines after checking out this post. You have been warned, be cautious.
Disclaimer Notice
Deimos did not author the following letter as he received it via an email forward.
Dear All,
I would like to share a real life story with all my friends and especially all my colleagues and all Maybank account holders.
This incident happened on today evening (1 April 2008). I went to the PJ State (Also known as PJ New Town) Maybank to withdraw RM500. Unfortunately for me, only 9 RM50 notes came out instead of 10.
What happened was, one of the RM50 notes was folded exactly in half and placed at a corner of the stack (Please refer to the attached pictures showing how two RM50 notes can be counted as three).
I was so upset because I have no proof that the ATM did not give me the correct amount. After much hesitation, I finally decided to call Maybank to complain about the incident knowing that I may not get back my money. But at least I can caution them of such incident. When I told of my situation to the Maybank Customer Service Representative, to my surprise, I was informed that I’m not the first victim. It seems that similar cases have occurred before. The lady explained that it is the malfunction of the ATM and the money may accidentally get folded in half. However when questioned, she was unable to explain to me why the money can be folded exactly in half and placed nicely in the corner of the stack.
I believe this is the new technique of cheating money, done by the people who are responsible of placing the money into the ATMs. In the stack of money which is to be placed into the ATM, one RM50 note is folded nicely in half, for every one note taken out of the stack of money. The folded RM50 notes are then placed at the edge of the stack and positioned in the ATM where the money would be counted. With that done, every one folded note would be counted by the machine as two notes.
I may be wrong about how and why it happened, but I would like to warn everyone about this incident. Please be careful when withdrawing money from the ATM (it may happen to other banks as well) and do count your money to be sure. If such an incident really happened to you (*touch wood*), please do call up the bank to complain about this. If everyone keeps quiet about this, the bank may be unaware of such incidents and the people responsible may just continue doing what they do without getting caught! Even if it is actually because of the ATM malfunctioning, the bank should know about this and there is also a chance of you getting your money back.
Best Regards,
Natalie Tan
Two RM50 notes. The note on top is folded to the right
The folded note is counted as two notes by the machine (two notes counted as three)
Deimos’s Daily Reads
No reads today, tagging some fellow Malaysian Bloggers to read this instead.
Kenny, yung., banji, skesee and Florence Fung.
Deimos’s Thoughts
If this is indeed true, then Deimos would be bloody pissed if it ever happened onto him. Deimos urges all fellow Malaysians to be cautious, and remember to count the notes!
Deimos Asks
Do you withdraw money from Maybank ATM machines? Have you heard about this before?
9:56 pm
perfectmhn
said the following:
your feedback to what was happened is really right and banker need to do something to prevent such this crime..Stealing / cheating people money is not the right way to get rich. There is a Lot of way to become rich but not from stealing..
9:51 am
kljs
said the following:
I think a police report should be lodged and also need to inform Bank Negara and the Finance Ministry. This is serious. I think we should be more pro-active in reporting such stuff like cheating. Malaysian have grown to be known as a country full of cheaters and con artist. Do we really need to let all these people get away with it?
11:34 am
Deimos Tel`Arin
said the following:
@perfectmhn:
Seems like the thieves here are those mofos who load the money into the ATM. 😯
@kljs:
Don’t think lodging a police report would be of much help here. 💡
Spreading the awareness of such case would be much better perhaps? 🙂
11:49 am
ATM Machine a cheater too? | kennyljs.com
said the following:
[…] Opinions, Rants, kljs Tags: kljs, Opinions, Rants 9Apr Deimos posted up an interesting article (Maybank ATM – Be Cautious – Count your notes) about ATM Machine not giving out the correct amount of money for withdrawals. And it’s not […]
11:59 am
kljs
said the following:
I think spreading awareness is one way, but lodging a report is a must. I understand we have not much confidences in our police force, but at least tell them about it too. We need to not only spread it through the internet, we need to do more than that.
2:05 pm
Deimos Tel`Arin
said the following:
@kljs:
Now that you mentioned it, there is a point to let them know what happened. 😐
Hopefully, this does not happen to us! *touch wood* 😀
6:26 pm
Felex Tan
said the following:
Did the bank give back the money ?Lodge a report,at least they have police report,so if happen again.The bank will be questioned and investigated .
11:11 pm
Michael Aulia
said the following:
That’s very low! 😡
9:58 am
Vortrack
said the following:
I guess we really need to be careful now. But people like me lazy to count money.
And if you redraw a big amount, I would just slip back to my pocket because I’m afraid ppl scouting me.
1:54 pm
llcj
said the following:
You mean the note counting machines in the ATM are so un-intelligent, that they only count the notes from one side, instead of the centre or the whole note? Well sorry to hear this, if it is real. please lodge police report and show it to us. It’s just too many internet hoax nowadays.
3:43 pm
Deimos Tel`Arin
said the following:
@Felex Tan:
No idea, I was not the victim in the story. 😐
========================================================
@Michael Aulia:
Welcome to Malaysia! 😆
========================================================
@Vortrack:
I always count my notes. I count them quickly though.
========================================================
@llcj:
I find it quite surprising that the ATMs would be that stupid as well. 😮
Anyway, this is a new, no idea if it is true or just another hoax. 🙂
========================================================
8:04 pm
kljs
said the following:
That’s why I am willing to say that 50% of this story is just a Malaysian Urban Legend…….. nothing more than just hot air… or something like that…. unless someone can prove it is true though…
1:05 am
vickie
said the following:
Each machine also have their benefits and shortcoming. If the guard who insert the RM50 notes on the stack, they probably intend to make the Rm50 notes folded half and then they took 1 notes on it …. like that they mai untung loh
11:03 am
Deimos Tel`Arin
said the following:
@kljs:
There is a way to test it, but might arouse suspicious from the guard. 😐
=========================================================
@vickie:
Yeah, but is the ATM machine really that stupid? 😮
=========================================================
11:45 am
Shanker Bakshi
said the following:
Its awakening No Doubt. and also very sad if its going around somewhere.
4:11 pm
Deimos Tel`Arin
said the following:
@Shanker Bakshi:
If this is true, then it is very unfortunate if it happened to us. ➡
But like the rest have said, this is probably some hoax up by some people. 😯