The Deputy Registrar, Delta State Polytechnic, Excellence Ugbune, has explained why he returned excess cash dispensed to him by an ATM.
In an interview with Sunday PUNCH, he said, “Some persons have been asking me how possible it is (for an ATM to dispense in excess of request). What happened exactly was that I went to cash some money that day and after cashing the money I decided to confirm if the amount was complete.
“In the process, I saw that the bundle was a mixture of N1,000 and N500 notes. After counting, I discovered that the cash in my hand was more than the amount I intended to withdraw. I think the machine could have been programmed to dispense only N500 notes but the bank mistakenly loaded N1,000 notes into it as well. Perhaps, the bank official who loaded cash into the ATM, didn’t do proper sorting before loading cash into the machine. I found N1,000 notes in between N500 notes.
“I had even forgotten about the incident until someone mentioned it in a meeting. It was an annual meeting of all senior staff members. The person mentioned it when the Rector was encouraging people to be hard-working and to be honest.
“The Rector was talking about how he had rewarded some outstanding staff members in recent times. At that point, a staff member stood up and spoke about the case of how I returned excess cash dispensed to me by ATM to the bank. He recommended that I should also be commended by the Rector for being a good ambassador of the polytechnic. Then the Rector asked for the name of the person talked about and my name was mentioned. I was invited to the podium and asked to narrate how it happened, which I did.
“I returned it immediately. I could have easily cashed my money and put it in my pocket and be on my way but then I couldn’t trust the ATM. So, as soon as the machine dispensed the money, I counted it to check if it was complete and when I did, I saw that there was excess. To be very sure, I did a second counting after which I walked into the banking hall. I drew their attention to what happened. I told them that their machine was dispensing in excess of requests. They immediately switched off the machine. I returned the excess cash to them and left.
“I did not see the bank manager in person. I just dropped the cash. The bank officials thanked me very well and I left. The following day, the bank sent a letter of appreciation to me.”
