I've just had my eftpos card chewed by an ATM in the Wellington Railway Station this morning.

It's a stand-alone unit just beside the ticket kiosk and seemly convenient unless you happen to be in a discussion with someone and Fail the user test.

I say "fail" because the machine is not broken, apparently. The comment from the terse supervisor was, the machine is operating correctly, no faults have been detected.

so therefore I have failed to use the machine correctly.

Apparently this is quite common. The prescribed response from the CS operator at the end of the 0800 confirmed the location and card type and then informed me that the card would be destroyed, if I wanted a replacement, I would need to contact my own bank - happened to be another.

I asked if someone could come out to the machine and pull my card out and that was declined.
I asked if the withdrawal I was in the process of making had actually gone through - I was told there was no way they could tell - I would need to talk to my own bank.
I asked if they could tell me why my card was taken - the person on the phone said no, most probably a problem with my card.
I asked if a log for the cards capture would explain why it was held and if I could be given that information - and after some huffing and puffing I at first got a commitment from the person to get a call back by the end of the day.

The one thing that came through loud and clear was "Go and talk to your own bank" - not "sorry about that".

So I went to my bank who issued a new card and during the process made the glib remark - you probably left it in the slot to long.

I questioned the operated about this and this person from my bank said - there's a step in the process of a withdrawal that if you don't remove the card after 30 seconds, the machine pulls it back in - in case you've walked off. Its a step to protect your card from being taken by someone else.