Never deposit a huge wad of money in the bank machine, at least not in Guangzhou, and definitely not in front of strange men that you don’t know. The scam is interesting: Mr. Shu puts the money in, and just as he’s about to finish, a guy next to him says “you dropped some money” and as he bends down to look, another man on the other side puts another bank card into the slot. Shu gets up and thinks that is his card, and walks off. Well maybe he doesn’t walk off—the article says that he was strongly encouraged to leave by the criminals, so it’s hard to say when Shu first noticed something was wrong.
The men, now having access to his account (the real card was still inside), transfer 50,000 RMB out of Shu’s account and also take out some money.
Shu has sued the bank for several reasons. Firstly, there was the phone system: it took him a long time to get through the maddening voice prompt system to the point where he could report the loss of his card. By the time he got someone on the phone and got through with reporting the loss, the money in his bank had long since disappeared. He argued that it was the fault of that system for making him lose precious time and money. He also sued the bank for placing the machines too close together.
The court ruled that the bank had to pay Shu 20% of his losses, which amounted to a bit over 10,000 RMB. The rest, it decided, was his fault for not being more careful and for falling for the old switcheroo.