Short-dispense error

Definition

A cardholder debited for cash the machine did not hand over, on a clock the route does not hold.

Why It Matters

Vault cash is the operator's own money inside the machines. This is what happens when the float comes back short. Receiving an incorrect amount of money from a terminal is a federally defined error, investigated by the bank holding the cardholder's account within ten business days, or up to forty-five with a provisional credit. The route is not that bank and issues no card, so it reports nothing to anybody and learns of the loss as a settlement adjustment weeks later. A seller's revenue summary can look clean while adjustments eat the surcharge. The defense is the terminal's electronic journal read against the cassette count, so ask for twelve months of adjustments by machine, because one terminal producing repeats is a hardware fault the seller has been paying for.