Dear Sir,
Something terrible has happened to me and, since it could happen to anyone, your readers should be aware of it. I have a bank account with Bank of America. They have an arrangement with Santander whereby I can use their ATMs without cost or exchange fees. This sounds like a dream until you lose 432 dollars. On June 8, I went to the Santander in Chapala and attempted to withdraw 6,000 pesos to pay my rent. After my ATM card had been “read,” a message flashed on the machine saying that it was out of order. I reported this to Santander, but they said that I would need to report this to Bank of America. I made that report immediately. I waited ten days, but nothing had been done. I called B of A again and they reimbursed my money on June 20. I thought that this issue had been settled. However, in mid-August, I received a letter from B of A saying that on August 1 they had deducted the money again. B of A said that Santander had not corroborated my story. To make matters worse, the statute of limitation on these complaints is 30 days, so due to the delay in getting mail here in Mexico, I had little time to make formal complaints.
Last week, my attorney and I went to Condusef, the Mexican organization that oversees the banking and finance sector. They refused to accept my complaint because my ATM card is from the United States. However, a staff member did tell my attorney that there had been numerous complaints against Santander for this practice.
I’m out 432 dollars. Sounds like a scam to me.
Kathleen Phelps, Ajijic
The editor notes: Unfortunately this is not the first time such complaints have been received. In fact, incidents of foreign banks deducting money from accounts after Mexican ATM’s have failed to dispense the requested cash (for whatever reason) are commonplace and have been going on for many years. Condusef (the Comision Nacional para la Defensa de los Usuarios de las Instituciones Financieras) repeatedly refuses to become involved, arguing that it is the responsibility of the foreign bank to resolve the problem. Similarly, the Mexican bank operating the ATM machine invariably claims no responsibility and puts the blame on the foreign bank – even though they would seem to be the primary financial beneficiaries of the error. Our advice is to vigorously follow up the matter with your bank and refuse to be fobbed off. If you are the victim of such an incident, be sure to note down all the details of the ATM transaction: branch, location, time, etcetera.