A bank has allayed concerns after a Blackburn man says cash was taken from his account from a ‘disused’ cash machine.

A TSB bank statement lists £170 withdrawn from the Cash Zone-managed ATM. The customer says he was told it was done at the site of the former petrol station on Audley Range in Blackburn.

The forecourt has been closed for a number of months and has remained sealed off. Work has recently started at the site but the cash machine remains out of order and switched off.

NCR, who manage Cash Zone, confirmed that the last transaction at the location was on 31 January 2023. This was more than two months before the customer was meant to have withdrawn £170 from the site.

TSB have now clarified the error and said the statement had logged the wrong site as ‘Springhill’.

The customer, Shafiq, said he had contacted his bank TSB over the withdrawal on 19 April and was not given a full explanation for the error.

He said: “When I discovered the transaction on my bank statement I decided to look into it further.

“When I rang the bank up first they said it was an ATM transaction. I said I had not used the petrol station.

“Then I went and checked the petrol station. It was closed and the cash machine was fenced off. So, how can a transaction take place from my account on a cash machine that is disused?

“It made no sense whatsoever."

Lancashire Telegraph:

Shafiq said: “The bank were of little help at all when I raised this. They just seemed to pass me from one person to the next.  I have been banking with them for 30 years.

“In further calls I was told the chip and pin has been used to withdraw the cash. All this from a disused cash machine?

“When this was raised further by the Lancashire Telegraph the bank have been in touch and said they were looking into it and seen this as a pressing concern.”

It now transpires that the statement listed the wrong site and should have named the Furthergate Petrol Station on Accrington Road.

The customer said: “That is one I use and it would have been so much easier if they had told me that in the first place rather than saying it was the Springhill one. It just stressed me out for two months.

“They should know when the money is coming out from?

"This could have been sorted earlier."

A spokesperson for TSB said: “We have confirmed with our customer and the cashpoint operator that the transactions were genuine and made at an operational local cashpoint by the customer. 

“We are happy to confirm that no fraud has taken place.”

TSB said that banks will always look to support their customers for genuine cases in which cards have been stolen or compromised and anyone who experiences this should contact their bank as soon as they discover it.