Chicago is My Home

22
Jan

Chicago Cell Phone Camera Captures Montrose Street Collapse

Author: Adam Fendelman, Category: News of the Weird

On Tuesday, Chicagoan Wally Fikri captured the following photo with his cell phone of a Montrose Street collapse.

He said: “Interesting morning. I woke up to the sound of helicopters everywhere. It turns out the street completely collapsed next to the Montrose [train] platform. This is the one I have been taking every morning since they closed the Damon stop. Take a look at the picture I took from the [train] on my camera phone. I was not injured.”

06
Nov

True Story: Chicago ATM Spits Out $100, Immediately Sucks it Back

Author: Adam Fendelman, Category: News of the Weird

This is a true story. To start off my Tuesday morning in Chicago on the wrong foot, I decided to use an ATM I’ve used only, oh, a hundred times before.

As my wallet stared me in the face with zeroes, I decided to roll with the big boys and debit 100 large. The ATM thought it funny to toss me my hard-earned lollipop and snatch it right back.

All prose aside, I literally debited $100 from an ATM in the grocery store where I live, the transaction processed as usual, the cash spewed out and not but a second later it sucked itself back in.

As the icing on the cake, the receipt then shot out displaying proudly that computer systems considered the transaction complete and the money is now gone from my account.

The store proprietor spoke little English except to say “not my problem”. There was no phone number on the ATM. All I had was my receipt. The printing on the receipt was faded and you could barely make out the words.

I called Chicago Community Bank, which was legible on the receipt. I had never heard of them. They said to call Chase, which is my bank. I went in person to snip this one right.

The personal banker there knew me. He called a toll-free number. That chap “trusted” my story and said the funds will be credited back within 24 to 48 hours as they research the claim.

Was this an ATM glitch or are ATMs actually designed to eat money after a certain amount of time? That’s the question.