Local

Send Ben: Money hungry ATM at Truist Bank ate their cash

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Ray and Tashike Rogers own Remakestones, a headstone business on Lem Turner Road in Jacksonville. The couple said the money-hungry ATM at Truist ate their cash.

They deposited money into their business account using an ATM, but the small business owners had a big problem.

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<

“Putting the money in there, I had a thousand of 50s and 20s,” said Tashike. She said she deposited $1,000 cash in an ATM at their Truist branch, but the money never went to their business account.

Tashike showed us the two receipts she received at the time of the deposit. One read, “We apologize, there was an ATM error, and your deposit did not process.” The other read, “We encountered a problem returning your item(s). Please contact your financial institution.”

The Rogers filed a claim with the bank, only to be told, “Our investigation has determined no error has occurred.”

According to the Government Accountability Office, there are now more than 420,000 ATMs in the United States totaling upwards of 3.2 billion transactions a year. But there are no statistics on how many malfunctions.

“Pretty unusual?” Becker asked Dr. Sherif Elfayoumy who is the Director of the University of North Florida School of Computing. “Very unusual,” said Elfayoumy. “This is an electronic device that has some mechanical components as well, but you can imagine like any other machine, it can fail at some point in time.”

Action News Jax obtained body camera video from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office showing officers at the bank after the Rogers called police to file a report.

“He seems pretty upset about a thousand bucks,” said the officer to the bank manager who admitted to police she wasn’t sure what happened.

The bank manager said, “My ATM department, they pulled the footage and they just said that the client’s hand, it was too hard to see.” The officer asked, “They couldn’t tell if the person put the money in or not?” And the bank manager answered, “Yes.” The bank manager said the ATM only takes still pictures and not videos.

[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]

The bank manager also explained the machine’s account was balanced for the day suggesting there was nothing wrong with the ATM which is owned by Brinks.

Elfayoumy said the incident raises the question of not only the security of your money but also your safety.

“There is a cost associated with operating another camera or bigger wider view camera,” said Elfayoumy,

Becker went to the Truist branch to speak to the manager to get some answers but was told to contact corporate. He did and a spokesperson sent a statement:

“I can confirm our teams have been in contact with this individual. [Ray Rogers] For privacy reasons, we’re unable to share anything further.”

Ray and Tashike are left to wonder what happened that day, but Becker was able to get their $1,000 back from the bank after pushing the right buttons.

“What made you reach out to me?” Becker asked Ray. “We watch Channel 47 every evening!” “When you [Ben] start asking the right questions, people don’t want to answer the right questions. They don’t like you too tough, " said Ray. Truist also sent one of the Rogers’ accounts to collections that were left underfunded because of the ATM issue, but Becker was undeterred, and that problem was fixed too.

Our expert said the best way to avoid ATM problems is to consider using a live teller especially if you are depositing a lot of money.

[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]

Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.