With the rise of contactless payments, by NFC on the mobile or the options to share money between friends with platforms like Bizum, we use less and less cash. Virtual offices have also meant that we rarely go to physical offices and not too much to the ATM, but we can still carry out certain card operations in them.
No matter how used you are to using an ATM, you may not know that there is a time limit that you should not exceed if you do not want the ATM to keep your card.
Withdraw your card from the ATM on time
If you have ever carried out an operation at an ATM, you should not get too confused in the final steps, when our bank card is returned to us. You may not know it, but there is a deadline for you to withdraw it. If not, the cashier will swallow it. This period is set at 40 seconds and is shared by practically all banking entities.
The reason for this is for security reasons. When detecting an absence of activity on the part of the user, even after the emission of beeps that alert us to withdraw the card, the ATM will retain the card in case it has been lost or there has been an incident with the user who introduced it. In this way, despite the hassle that recovering it can cause us later, any illicit use of it by third parties is prevented.
Recovering it will be a different process depending on whether the operation at the ATM has taken place during office hours, or when it is closed. To recover your card with the branch open, it will suffice to notify the staff of the same and after prior identification of the holder and verifying that there is no type of block against said card, it will be returned to the user who let the 40 seconds pass.
If the office is not open, the process is complicated. You will have to contact a customer service telephone number of your entity, something that according to the Order EHA/2899/2011of October 28, 2011, on transparency and protection of the client of banking services establishes that it should appear “in a visible place, there will be a telephone number for incidents, which can be called in the event that there are problems in the provision of the services”.
Other reasons why your card can be swallowed
Of course, 40 seconds of inactivity isn’t the only reason an ATM can gobble up a debit or credit card. For example, something sudden might also happen like a power outage or technical problem. In most cases where this happens, a power failure while the card is being operated inside the ATM can cause the machine to turn off momentarily and the plastic remains inside.
It may also be due to some problem or invalidity of the inserted card. If you introduce an expired or previously canceled card into the ATM, the credit card may also be retained by the ATM as it is not a valid one with which you can continue operating and, thus, forcibly withdraw it of circulation.
