It was an ordinary Saturday for me last March 22, except for the mangled P500 bill I took out of the BDO automated teller machine. Nope, it definitely doesn’t look like something the girl at SM would take from a customer. After a dismayed sigh, I shrugged it off. A few moments after, I was already contemplating my wet market list and forgot about it.
This morning, I saw the mangled bill again. I must admit I was tempted to forget about it but I could smell a MoneySmart moment, so off I went to the BDO branch near the ATM machine to ask if they can replace the bill.
“I have a sort of weird request,” I told the lady in blue behind a desk. “This is one of the bills I got out of the ATM machine near this branch…” I let my voice trail into a sweet silence.
She wasn’t really surprised, come to think of it. “Wait here, let me ask them if they got the other half,” she said.
After a few minutes, she came back and told me they didn’t find the other half. She wants me to show her the ATM receipt. ATM receipt? It was probably lying down in my sorry excuse for a filing system, or rolled up with all the plastic bags that I came home with after my market day.
“You can also ask your bank to give you a report that will prove that you withdrew from our ATM machine on that day,” she said.
Errr.. sounds pretty complicated. I told the lady with a smile that perhaps I would come back. As I type this blog post however, I’m thinking what if that was my last money and I needed to buy medicine for an ailing baby? What if my son’s graduation depended on that money? Even if I had the receipt today, the faulty ATM would have already caused me grief over the weekend. Shouldn’t the bank be held accountable for that? The lady, in fact, added that they had a similar incident the previous week, showing that their machine was indeed faulty.
Glad that it didn’t caused me much grief, though. Perhaps I should frame it to remind me that money is just money. Attitude towards it is the one that causes either grief or happiness.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Reswell, BDO atm near Ace Hardware in SM City North EDSA and the branch is along that street also, in the old SM Supersale building.
March 27th, 2008 at 2:28 am
I have an account with epci, which was converted to BDO now. I was disappointed that epci or bdo didn’t send e-mail to inform clients how they can switch from epci to BDO internet banking but I was impressed with BDO’s customer service when I called them about it. The transition was very smooth and everything was done with just one phone call. Actually, it was impressive enough that somebody answered the phone. Before, when I call epci and hello service of equitable card, it takes ages and several tries before somebody picks-up the call and worse, you will not get a satisfactory answer for your question - not to mention that you are already being charge while waiting and listening to those voice messages that say, please hold until the next agents becomes available!!!
But then again, I cannot blame those who had a bad experience with BDO or any other banks. I’ve had my share of unbelievable customer service from the country’s big banks.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:57 am
@arpeelazaro,
I finally got some peace of mind with BPI.
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I also love BPI. I’m quite satisfied with their customer service. Still not the best bank but it’s a lot better than other big local banks. Grabe, yong staff sa ibang bangko, ni hindi alam ang product and services nila…dumudugo ilong ko…
March 27th, 2008 at 1:53 am
@ Alex
LBP ATM na kung pwede ay maglagay naman sila ng ATM booth sa loob ng mga SM mall o Robinson mall
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I remember there’s LBP ATM at Robinson’s Galleria and even in some SM malls although kaunti talaga unlike other banks, they have ATM for every mall.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:47 am
I also don’t get receipt from my atm so this is a lesson learned. But for online banking, I always print transaction advice for reference and to save paper, I print PDF.