ATM Amnesia

The FINANCIAL — About 1,500 clients of Bank Constanta and KSB Bank forget their cards’ pin codes each year in Georgia, according to the statistics provided by these banks.

On average 10 customers of Bank Constanta forget a card’s pin code and 20 of them lose a card every month, according to the year 2013’s statistics. Out of all of the forgetful customers of Bank Constanta the majority are men and the most common reason for their forgetfulness is alcohol-induced, the statistics show.

“Men tend to be distinguished by their forgetfulness. And it is exactly men that tend to forget their cards’ codes or lose them in most cases, according to our statistics,” said Giorgi Shavishvili, Bank Constanta. “The statistics show that in such cases men are usually drunk and forget to retrieve their card after using an ATM. The main reasons for losing a card are losing a wallet or leaving the card in an ATM. We have almost no data of anyone stealing plastic cards,” he added.

About 5 applications are submitted for reasons of forgetting one’s card’s pin code per day at KSB Bank. “These people require restoration of their pin codes. We have almost the same data as those losing a card. People mainly leave their cards in ATMs. As for stealing cards, we get very few complaints about that, on average just 2-3 cases per week,” said Gvantsa Gusharashvili, of KSB Bank.

As pin codes are unique the majority of Georgian banks do not restore them. In the event of forgetting a pin code banks have to make a whole new card for customers, which costs a minimum of GEL 10. But there are a few banks like KSB Bank, Liberty Bank and Privat Bank who offer to give their customers a new pin code and preserve the existing card. The cost of this service is different – KSB offers this service for GEL 5, Liberty Bank – for GEL 3, and Privat Bank – for free.

“For the restoration of a pin code the customer needs to fill out an application and then they can restore it themselves via KSB’s ATMs. If a customer loses a card the only solution is to order a new card,” Gusharashvili said.

“I have forgotten my card’s pin code only once in my life,” said Tamuna Gabelia, TBC Bank customer. “When I went on vacation I was not using my plastic card and because of so rarely using it I forgot its pin code. I went to TBC Bank explaining how I’d forgotten the pin code and they offered me a new card. It was then when I was waiting in line to speak to an operator that I suddenly remembered it,” she added.

“I am not a forgetful person by nature but I have forgotten my card’s pin code several times,” said Lasha Paichadze, Libery Bank customer. “I have several cards and sometimes I cannot remember which pin code goes with which specific card. I have to pay just GEL 3 each time I need to get a new pin code for the same card that I usually use, so I see no real problem in forgetting a pin code,” he added.

Giorgi Shavishvili, Senior Specialist in the credit card department, says that there are many funny stories of people using ATMs. “I would single out three cases which were particularly memorable. Once a customer came in to one of our branches having bought a bouquet of flowers and asked an operator to give the flowers to a girl who was sitting at an ATM. Also, one customer came in and complained that a girl sitting at an ATM had not given him change. Another time a woman claimed that she could not insert her card and she wanted to find out why she could not use it. She gave us her card and it turned out that the card had been laminated,” said Shavishvili.

Over half of Brits (59%) are suffering from ‘ATM amnesia’. Research, carried out by Barclaycard contactless, reveals that sufferers of ATM amnesia are losing track of nearly GBP 20.002 every week, which stacks up to almost GBP 10,003 each year.

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