ATM scam in Elviria

AN 82-year-old resident of Elviria has advised us that she went to the Elviria branch of Sabadell Bank to withdraw funds from her account on August 14 using their ATM. The person in front of her had difficulty in using the machine but did obtain some money whilst our lady tried twice without success even though she had funds in the account.

She then went to another ATM, this time in the Unicaja Elviria branch where the card was retained and as it was Friday afternoon she decided to phone when she could and then return to the bank when it opened the following Monday.

It appears that she did manage to contact a representative the bank on the next day and advise what had happened but when she returned the following Monday, the card was nowhere to be seen although the bank did have several other cards in a box.

When she went to check her account, it transpired that €3,000 had been withdrawn from different ATMS around the Marbella area over the weekend. Having reported the matter to the police and being advised that this appeared to be an ongoing occurrence with bank cards in the area, she approached Sabadell, and the manager at her branch, whilst very sympathetic, had to refer the matter to head office.

According to this lady, a response was eventually received declining to refund any of the lost money as a pin number had been used when withdrawing the funds and no stop had been put on the account despite the fact that she had reported the card as being held by the ATM.

It seems most likely that one of the two ATMs had been scammed and those who had arranged it had simply created a new card containing her name and details.

If this was not bad enough, she fell on the morning of September 12 and broke her hip requiring an immediate evacuation to hospital where she is now immobile and cannot afford to obtain assistance either by moving into a nursing home or by hiring a home help.

At the time of writing this story, we have not obtained any comment from her bank but will do so because if the situation is as reported then the bank should perhaps at least consider its moral duty to the customer regardless of its rules and regulations.