Out of Pod Experience

Bank customers withdraw hundreds of euros amid cashpoint malfunction rumours
By: thinkSPAIN , Saturday, March 9, 2013

RUMOURS that cashpoints were 'giving away' money saw queues stretching down the street all over Tenerife last night – but to the chagrin of those who had drawn their maximum permitted daily limit, the story turned out to be unfounded.

Witnesses said it 'looked like a huge party' as hundreds of islanders took advantage of confusion caused by CajaCanarias and La Caixa banks merging and a message going out to customers to say withdrawals between Friday and Saturday would not be registered on their account details.

But account holders misunderstood the message – which went viral on social networks – since in reality, their statements were simply updated to reflect the amounts they withdrew a day later.

The urban myth spread the fastest in the district of Orfa in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where over 30 people were seen in the queue at any time taking out up to 500 euros in one hit.

And as the clock struck midnight and their daily withdrawal limits were reinstated, they queued again to take out another 500 euros.

“You have to make the most of it when banks actually give you something, because they normally take money off you whenever they can get away with it,” one person in the queue said.

Yet within the hour, each of the affected cashpoints were emptied and many standing in line had to leave empty-handed.

Where this happened, though, others were only too keen to help by giving directions to further ATM machines which were still rumoured to have notes left in them.

Account holders had a shock this morning, however, when they found that the money they had taken out was showing as a withdrawal on their statement details after the cashpoints finally updated their records automatically.