A phantom withdrawal is a cash withdrawal from an automatic teller machine where money has been withdrawn, and neither the customer nor the bank admit liability.
Banks often claim that the withdrawals are the result of fraud by customers.[1] Many experts ascribe phantom withdrawals to the criminal activity of dishonest insiders. Ross Anderson, a leading cryptography researcher, has been involved in investigating many cases of phantom withdrawals, and has been responsible for exposing several errors in bank security.[2]