A CROWD of people queued up to take advantage of wads of free money when �10 and �20 notes began spewing out from an Exmouth bank cashpoint.

A CROWD of people queued up to take advantage of wads of free money when �10 and �20 notes began spewing out from an Exmouth bank cashpoint.

People were unable to believe their eyes when they inserted their cashpoint cards at the LloydsTSB machine in The Strand and, after punching in the required amount, were rewarded with extra cash.

The bank this week admitted the cashpoint equipment had suffered a fault and, for a short period one evening, was dishing out larger amounts of cash than requested.

The bank said those lucky enough to have found themselves with extra funds would not be expected to return the cash.

LloydsTSB said, because the machine was faulty, accounts would be debited only with the amount originally requested - not the total received.

The bank said it would be impossible to trace those who had profited from the extra cash - unless their conscience got the better of them.

LloydsTSB refused to divulge the amounts the cash machine had given out extra, saying company policy prevented it from discussing figures.

The Journal understands large amounts of cash - believed to be several hundreds of pounds - were distributed to people asking for small amounts of money.

However, LloydsTSB denied the claims, saying:?"We don't give figures away. We don't disclose that. We want to make it clear it's strictly not true it was large amounts."

A LloydsTSB spokesman said: "For a short period of time, a technical error with one of our cashpoints in The Strand meant that it was dispensing incorrect amounts of money.

"This problem was rectified swiftly and the machine was reopened soon afterwards.

"People have been saying they had substantial amounts, but that is not the case."

The Journal has been told that, when word got around the LloydsTSB cashpoint was malfunctioning, scores of people queued up to use it before the fault was discovered.

A Strand shop assistant, who did not want to be named, said she was stacking shelves when a customer came in and told her about the haul.

She said: "He said it was heaving around the Lloyds' cash machine because it was chucking out money.

"He said he had got some. I think it was a large amount, maybe a thousand pounds.