how safe are our ATMs?

Hi

After a long gap i am back, my topic this time around is about ATMs, Yesterday i had a terrible experience that really made me think "Are our ATM machines really any good at all”. Here is what happened, as i was in urgent need of money i had to use the HDFC ATM machine that was there in my Chennai one office, Thoraipakkam. I didn't have a HDFC bank account and so i used my ICICI debit card to withdraw money, the machine was damn slow to start with, finally i managed to log in, key in the required amount and request a transaction, but unfortunately the machine after producing a battery of noises said that it is "Temporarily unable to process the request" , it did not dish out any receipt it only gave me two options one to continue to make a new transaction and the second to quit, i chose the later as i didn't see a point in re-trying. To my surprise when i came out of the ATM i received a message from ICICI the amount has been debited from my account, i was shocked. I asked the person in charge of the ATM his reply was "This happens, wait for 2 hours, if it doesn't get reversed by then you call HDFC customer care".

Two hours passed without any action and so i called the HDFC phone banking number, after working my way through a maze of options i finally reached the operator, the guy was polite and heard my whole story but finally he said that it is an issue between ICICI and VISA and so i have to call my ICCI customer care and register a complaint. I lost all my patience by now but some how i called the ICICI customer care and filled a complaint with them, the lady who spoke to me over the phone Ms. Rani said it will take at least 8 working days minimum to process the request and it may even take up to 12 days if an official complaint has to be raised but what i don't understand is why so long to simply check and roll back a single transaction. When i discussed with my colleague Dr. Arun he came up with an excellent explanation as to why this entire problem crept up in the first place, what these machine do when you enter the ATM/debit card of another bank is

1. They establish a connection with the bank.
2. Allow you to choose your transaction.
3. If it's a withdrawal it first check whether you have enough money in your account, makes a debit transaction and returns to the machine.
4. Only after that it checks if the local ATM machine has enough money to give.
5. If it has enough then no problem it gives you, but if doesn't it then gives you an error message and then has to inform your bank to rollback the transaction. But this roll back process is not so very simple and is at times missed.

I feel this is utter clumsiness, this is what has exactly happened to me as when i went back to the ATM after 15 minutes of this chaos i found the bank guys had come to reload the machine, so for no fault of mine i need to wait for 12 days to get my money. I propose a better way of doing the same, let steps 1 and 2 remain the same but when you want to withdraw money the machine should first check if it has enough money to make the transaction, if it doesn't the transaction has to be halted there and then and the customer must be informed of the same, only if it has sufficient cash it should make a debit transaction and with draw the money from your account. Until this is done, people like us will have to be at the mercy of these ATMs.

An even more worrying news hit me when i went home and switched on my TV, all the news channels were reporting that fake currencies were being dished out by ATMs across the county, i can understand the circulation of fake currency through mafia channels and black markets but how ATMs? Isn't the bank supposed to check for the validity of the notes before they put them in the machine? Is this a mere case of negligence or there is more to this than what meets the eyes, you decide.