What do I do if an ATM holds one of my tickets?
25/03/2025
It is not very common, but it can happen that when making an entry into an ATM some of the bills are retained on suspicion of being false.
Should this happen to you, please note that under Regulation 1338/2001/ECAbre en ventana nueva, financial institutions, bureaux de change and other cash professionals are obliged to withdraw all counterfeit or suspected euro banknotes and coins from circulation. In addition, they must deliver them to the Banco de España within a maximum period of 15 working days.
Most ATMs allow banknotes to be entered independently and must retain those suspected of being counterfeit, issuing a receipt stating that they will be sent to the Banco de España for verification. If you have found an older cashier and you have made the entry of banknotes in an envelope, it will be your entity that subsequently informs you in case one is suspicious.
Once the banknote is retained, the bank must complete a form in an application of the Banco de España with the details of the banknotes retained and the details of the presenter (the entity) and the holder (the owner), including the IBAN of the holder to whom the amount of the ticket will be transferred, if it proves to be legitimate. The application will generate a receipt with a registration number, necessary for you to follow up on the file. This proof is different from the one provided by the cashier, so you must request it from the entity if they did not provide it.
If you want to know the status of the file of your suspicious ticket, you can ask the entity that retained it or inform yourself through the application "Consultation of the fileAbre en ventana nueva", entering the registration number and the identification number (DNI). You can also contact the National Analysis Center, providing as much identification data of the file, claimant and / or ticket / s as possible.
Once the banknote arrives at the Banco de España, the National Analysis Center Abre en ventana nuevawill examine it. The result, whether the ticket is legitimate or fake, will be communicated to your email and that of the presenting entity. If the ticket proves to be legitimate, its amount will be paid to your IBAN as soon as possible. If the entity did not fill in your data when registering the file, both the communication of the result and the transfer will reach the entity. In this case, you will need to contact them for information.
You should know that there is no specific deadline for the processing of files, and that these are analyzed in strict order of entry.
For more information on checking suspected counterfeit banknotes, see here.Abre en ventana nueva
Finally, a tip: if you suspect a banknote, compare it with one that you are sure is genuine and uses the “Feel, look, tilt”Abre en ventana nueva method.
“Disclaimer: Please note that this is a translation of the original in Spanish that has been obtained using eTranslation (the machine translation tool provided by the European Commission), with the intention of giving you a basic idea of the content in English until a human translation becomes available. The Banco de España accepts no liability whatsoever in connection with this translation.”
