Cashpoint ATM charges

pin

Don't know if this just journalistic spin, but thought it was worth a mention:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1357319,00.html

dunstonh

No big deal.

The cashpoints are generally those in shops and petrol stations not owned by the banks. You should always be wary on those because of charges anyway.

It doesnt affect the bank cashpoints which is the most important thing to most of us

pin

Sorry, should have made it a bit clearer. When I used Cashpoint in the subject, I mean "Cashpoint" the company, the one that bought several hundred of HBOS's ATM's.

dunstonh

Clarification for both us.

Cashpoint is a trademark of LTSB. Cardpoint is the company in question.

However, my response remains the same. Anyone using a shop/pub/hotel ATM should expect to pay a charge and I have no problem with it.

pin

Apologies, I think I wrote the wrong names.

student100

There is an issue here. These aren't ATMs in pokey corner shops or pubs, they're ATMs in busy areas e.g. outside supermarkets, in shopping centres etc, which were formerly owned by HBOS and branded as Halifax or Bank of Scotland ATMs. The bank used to provide these free as a service to customers, but to save costs and increase their large profits they have sold off their ATMs that are not attatched to a bank branch to a private company which will charge customers.

This is a big deal. If compaines like Cardpoint charge upwards of £1.50 per transaction for these machines, and people are willing to pay the fee, then other banks are going to see the benefit to their profits of selling off their non-branch ATMs to private companies which will charge customers. If this continues, eventually all cash machines which are not located at an actual bank branch may start charging customers, which is a Bad Thing. If this continues this way we will end up with the stupid situation that they have in lots of other countries, where customers can only use their own bank's ATMs free of charge and are charged ludicrous amounts for using any other ATM.

The only solution is to NEVER, EVER, EVER use an ATM that makes a charge, so that the likes of Cardpoint not be able to continue spreading these expensive cash machines across the country.

dunstonh

There is an issue here. These aren't ATMs in pokey corner shops or pubs, they're ATMs in busy areas e.g. outside supermarkets, in shopping centres etc, which were formerly owned by HBOS and branded as Halifax or Bank of Scotland ATMs. The bank used to provide these free as a service to customers, but to save costs and increase their large profits they have sold off their ATMs that are not attatched to a bank branch to a private company which will charge customers.

Apparantly, they are not in busy areas.  They are the ATMs which were in remote locations or had low useage and were expensive ot operate as a free service.

So the machines outside Tesco, for example, should have no problem.

Abbey sold 50 and HBOS sold 817. They still have over 2700 between them which are free.

Additionally, cardpoint have said they will covert a proportion of the newly aquired machines to a charging model.

The stats say that there are 32000 bank machines and 14000 independent machines. However, stand alone devices away from bank premises only account for about three percent of the total transactions conducted.

Just dont use them and then you dont have to worry about it.

Fatboy_NSS

Definitely not a big deal. Offsite cash machines are more likely to have been tampered with, as fraudsters know they are only visited by the security carrier once every few days. Onste machines are checked daily by branch staff so are less likely to have been tampered with.