June 22, 2018:
Can a Bank be held deficient in services if its ATM does not dispense Cash for the reason"Cash not available"? This Consumer Forum has ordered, that it can be held Guilty for the same.
Consumer Forum in Raipur has imposed a penalty of Rs.2500.00 on SBI for exactly the same reason overruling the arguments of SBI that 1) Complainant was not its customer and 2) Failure of internet connectivity is not within its ambit, rather it is upon the internet service provider against whom, any complaint if any, should lie.
Consumer Forum states that when the Banks are charging for usage of the ATMs for a whole year in advance and a client is Free to use any ATM he automatically becomes a customer.
Consumer Forum added that when ATM itself was showing"No Cash Available" on 3 different dates and times how it can be a case of internet failure? Moreover, when the customers are penalised for no balance or less than minimum balance in their accounts, how can a Bank get away with no cash in the ATM?
This is the first such judgement for the ATM failure.
Incident happened in May 2017 and complaint was filed in June 2017.
Picture Source :
