Practice English Listening B1+ Exercises – Take your cash

A

Story 1: The cash machine gave double the amount of cash people had keyed in.

Story 2: The cash machine gave their money and notes asking for help.

Both stories have a happy ending because in Story 1 the people were allowed to keep the cash, and in Story 2 the man who was sending the notes was able to get out.

B

Story 1

1   They rushed to take money out of the machine.

2   200 residents for 2 hours

3   Middle aged, and a few children

4   Because people started pushing into the queue

5   Switched off the ATM, and posted a message on Twitter to stop people from coming

6   It wasn’t the customers’ fault and they didn’t have to pay the money back.

Story 2

1   He was changing the lock to the ATM room.

2   His phone and his swipe card

3   Because he couldn’t get out of the room and he couldn’t call for help.

4   By passing notes through the machine to people who were taking money out

5   That it was a trick

6   They broke down the door and found the man.

Story 1

Tonight we’re going to start with a good news story – well, good news for some people! Yesterday, bank customers in a village in Hampshire were thousands of pounds richer after an ATM started giving out double the money people had asked for.

When people heard the news, they rushed to take money out of the faulty machine, and long queues formed. For two hours, around two hundred residents continued to withdraw money. It was mostly middle-aged people, but a few children arrived on their bikes with their parents’ bank cards. One villager, who asked not to be named, said that some people had used five or six bank cards and had got three hundred pounds free with each card. At first, people thought it was funny, but then some people became a bit aggressive when other people started pushing into the queue.

Finally, after two hours, the police arrived and switched off the ATM. They even posted a message on Twitter to stop more people arriving. They warned that receiving too much money from a cash machine might be a crime, and that the bank would ask people to pay back the money. However, later the bank said that it wasn’t the customers’ fault and that no one would have to return the money.

Story 2

And finally on Texas News this Wednesday evening, the man who got trapped inside an ATM. Customers who were using an ATM in Corpus Christi earlier today got a big surprise. While they were withdrawing money from the machine, several people received handwritten notes, asking for help.

A man, who asked not to be named, had locked himself in while he was changing the lock to the ATM room at the bank. Unfortunately, he’d left his cell phone and the swipe card he needed to get out of the room outside, in his van. When he realized that he couldn’t get out and couldn’t phone for help, he started passing notes through the ATM receipt slot to customers who were taking out cash. One of them read, ‘Please help. I’m stuck in here and I don’t have my phone. Please call my boss!’

At first, the customers thought the notes were a trick. But eventually, one of them called the police. When the police arrived, they heard a very quiet voice coming from inside the ATM. An officer went into the bank, broke down the door to the room behind the cash machine, and found the man. Senior Officer Richard Olden said, ‘We thought it was a joke. It was just crazy that somebody was stuck in the ATM. Luckily, the man is OK.’