Wife Left Money Inside ATM

Yesterday night we went to buy groceries, wife and baby went into Sheng Siong then I went to smoke. After not even 5 minutes, suddenly my wife called out to me and told me she forgot to take the money after she withdraw, asked her how much and she said S$200. I asked her anyone behind her or not but she cannot remember.

So I immediately used my phone to call the POSB hotline, there's a number on the ATM, anyway I also saved that number earlier on, 1800 339 6666.

It took quite a while to finally have someone talk to us, so I told the story, the service staff told me there are two scenarios, one is if nobody take the money, the ATM will take back the money, and credit back to account (didn't mention how long or when), two is if someone take the money, they will check the CCTV and then it will be a police case, but the latter is rare.

Either way, she will need to raise a request for her team to investigate, then she ask me to pass the phone to my wife because she is the account holder, so she asked her some questions to verify her account, after that told her she should get an SMS on Monday, I guess it's like a status update or something.

So next time if it happens to you, don't panic, call your bank as soon as possible, if can't reach, go to the nearest branch and they will advise you, if branch close and still can't reach their hotline, try the next day, but then I guess most people won't be able to sleep well, I mean it's your own money and a really silly mistake.

But remember, this is Singapore, I think even if you purposely leave the money and go off, 9 out of 10 people behind you won't dare to touch and will immediately alert you, the 1 that will take the money must be very desperate and dumb to not notice the CCTV, cover face also no use, eventually there will be one CCTV that catch the face.

If you are the 1 out of the 10, don't try, it is not your money, the ATM has a mechanism in place to retrieve the money, if you take it away knowing it's not your money, it is theft, and police will come after you.

Update: So the next day my wife checked and the money was credited back to her account, I guess the ATM took back the money and the bank staff put it back or something.