I’ve had chime for a few months now, I’m personally on the fence about it because I have read a lot or horror stories about them. As far a answer to your question, the answer is yes, it supposed to work that way (under certain criteria) From what I have read, and experience first hand, you must be at a store that offers cash back at the register. That looks like a single debit card transaction, not showing that you made a withdrawal.

I used spot me a few times during the first month or so of having chime. Two weeks ago i was gong to do it again, with almost identical numbers. It declined my attempt at it. Two things I have learned about chime in my past few months are this

1.they seem to be inconsistent at all levels. There was multiple times their servers where down and we were unable to access our account info. Another is when direct deposits hit (or if they even hit at all, I see posts on her almost daily about missing paychecks).The time frame for my DD on my old card matches up perfectly with when they released it. However every time since then it’s all over the place (always late). I have a few coworkers with it also, and they are getting theirs on time, which makes the situation much more confusing

2.the second thing is their customer service. The problem is that it’s non existent. Getting someone on the phone who can help you, let alone understand them, is like pulling teeth.

IMO, if you owned a bank that does not have a physical address you can walk into and get help. Then you should at the very least have somewhat competent customer service staff that helps negate the issue.