• The test notes were said to be left by maintenance staff.

The test notes were said to be left by maintenance staff. (Photo : Getty Images)

A woman from China’s eastern province of Zhejiang was left a couple of hundreds short after she withdrew three pieces of paper from an ATM in Jiaxing instead of her hard-earned money.

According to the Global Times, the woman who was identified bby her surname Xu was baffled at first when she got pieces of paper with her money after withdrawing 10,000 yuan ($1,546) from a Bank of Communications ATM in the area.

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After getting over her confusion, she contacted the local police and showed them the papers with the same size as a 100-yuan note with the words "test note" printed in it.

The police were also surprised at the incident, claiming that while they can confirm that the papers were indeed test notes, this is the first time they encountered such incident.

Authorities contacted the Bank of Communications to gain access to surveillance clips from the area where the ATM was located.

After investigating the incident, the law enforcers found out that the test notes were accidentally left by ATM maintenance personnel of Yintong inside the machine after repairing it.

In a CRIEnglish report, the maintenance staff clarified that they did leave the test notes inside the machine with the knowledge that the staff of the bank will remove them after the maintenance break was finished.

Apparently, the maintenance workers are not allowed to use real bank notes during ATM repairs and adjustments, which is why test notes are used.

The experience left Xu dumbfounded and without her hard-earned 300 hundred yuan which she planned to use for a trip.

Insiders told CRIEnglish that the bank should be held liable for the incident because they had most of the responsibility based on the work regulations during the maintenance of ATMs.

The Bank of Communications promised that the woman would be given her 300 yuan and a written explanation after figuring out who is at fault during the incident based on their ATM repair work regulations.