[Samo]

....... I put my card in the machine and the bastard thing promptly then swallowed it and then turned off completely...........,

El Samo, i suggest you rush to the bank and check things out. Same thing happened to me about 2 years back and it turned out i was the victim of what they call 'A Lebanese Loop'. It's the one where they've put a false cover over the card slot, you go through the motions, it reads you details then jams the machine. They come by once you've left take the whole false bit off which has your card inside it, then they draw out your max allowance everyday til you report it.
Did you put in your pin code before the machine shut down? If so it could be dodgy. If this has happened you can claim all the funds you lose back from your bank once they investigate it.

It might all be fine, but after what happened to me i thought i had better flag it up just incase.

Thanks for the warning dregz, not to sure whether it was a scam or just a problem with the machine, cos i put in the card, entered my pin, and then selected the amount i wanted to withdraw and then i just switched off.
I called the bank who's cashpoint it was, who told me they cant get cards out of their ATM's and would need permission from my bank to get the card, they guy i spoke to was very rude. so i hung up, called my bank and promply reported my card as stolen by the owners of the cashpoint...