ATM pays double

What a happy day was it for some of the customers of Sainsbury's Local store in England! A customer withdrawing money at one of the local stores discovered that the ATM machine was giving out twice the amount he requested. The news spread at the speed of light. Hundreds of hopefuls lined up at "the magic" ATM machine planning to effortlessly double the cash and hoping they will not be traced and asked to repay.

The withdrawal spree lasted for 3 hours. One of the participants said: "I was driving past when I saw a huge queue at the cash machine. I parked up and learned that it was paying out double. I joined the queue and when I finally got to the front, I drew out £200, but it gave me £400. The statement said I only drew out £200. I don't know whether I will have to pay it back." Some people were not as lucky - by the time their turn came, the machine was out of banknotes.

A spokesman for Sainsbury's Local stated that the ATM was operated by a private company and the amounts lost during the malfunction are still undetermined and will not be publicized. The withdrawal limit for most of debit cards in England is £300 daily which means that those in the front of the line were able to get £600 or less. In cases like these it is usually up to banks to decide whether or not to peruse the lost amounts. In similar situations some banks just wrote off overpayments instead of filing a large number of claims even with all ATMs always recording transactions for easy tracing.