Something funny with the Indian ATMs

The Indian Bank with the largest physical presence in India is the government-backed 'State Bank of India' or SBI for short. It's also one of the few ATM providers which doesn't charge an additional fee for cash withdrawals by foreign credit cards. As a long stay tourist who spends almost entirely in cash, and frequently withdraws small amounts, I have made at least 250 ATM withdrawals in my time in India. Unfortunately not all resulted in receiving cash, and a minority of these still resulted in my bank account being charged. The culprit in 6 of these cases, and a further 3 that I heard first hand from other foreign travelers, were ATMs branded as SBI. I can say this for sure: if your withdrawal fails in India, you must check your bank balance. "It will come back within 3 days", you might be told. In none of the 9 instances did the money come back, you must then register a dispute with the bank which issued your card to reclaim it. The SBI will not help you.

To me this is all a bit suspicious, because the ATM software registered that the withdrawal had failed each time. It either gave an error code or physically printed a receipt for the failure. There was network connectivity before and after, and sometimes the next withdrawal would even succeed. The bank, or the subcontracted ATM provider knows the failures occur, but the money just disappears. Money doesn't just disappear.