Why you should never share your ATM Card with anyone ?

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By TBN Staff


We are always advised by our respective Banks not to share our ATM Card or ATM PIN to anyone. In fact every alternate day we receive an alert message regarding this.

We too keep on eye to prevent such situation which would lead to Bank frauds. But sometimes we become careless towards our close relatives like parents, siblings or spouse and break the rules mentioned by Banks.

Here is an incident of a woman Vandana from Bangalore who had just had her Baby and could not move out so she gave her SBI Debit Card with the PIN to her husband Rajesh to withdraw a sum of Rs 25,000 on 14th November 2013.

Technically SBI ATM failed to dispatch the money but ATM machine showed a slip mentioning that the money is debited when Rajesh gave a call to Bank, they responded that the money would be returned to the account within 24 hours.

Even after days when the money was not returned, Rajesh visited the SBI’s Helicopter Division Branch at HAL and logged a complaint against no action was taken as Bank stated that transaction was correct and the customer had received the sum of money.

The couple again logged a complaint to the Bank with the help of CCTV footage of the particular day which showed Rajesh at the ATM and no money was disbursed from the ATM machine. Investigation committee formed at the Bank found that Vandana who was an account holder in the Bank was not the ATM user and had broken the SBI “non-transferable rule” which mentioned that no there than the account holder should use the ATM Card and is non-transferrable. Therefore money would not be reverted.

On 21st Oct 2014 Vandana went to the Bangalore IVth Additional District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum. She also presented the Cash verification report of that particular ATM of particular day collected through RTI to the court. SBI too produced several documents regarding log records & ATM transactions but maintain their stand that sharing ATM PIN is a violation.

Finally, on 29th May 2018 court dismissed the case giving a decision against Vandana & Rajesh. Court mentioned that Vandana broke the rule by sharing ATM card and PIN to her husband. Instead of sharing Vandana should have given a self-cheque or an authorization letter to withdraw money. Therefore the Bank is not responsible for the loss.

SBI taught a hard lesson to every ATM users who share their PIN or Card to their close relatives.