Have your say on cash machines

MSE_Martin

I'd like to support the Citizens Advice Bureaus campaign on cash machines and charges. To help why not do the survey and have your say in its survey

Fill in the CAB survey
(you'll see the link at the top middle of the page)

JasonW_2

Ive filled it in, good luck to them! I hate these machines.

grumbler

Some controversial opinion - just to keep the thread afloat....

Only ATMs located in/outside banks must be free. For all other ATMs provider is free to decide whether to charge or not; the only condition should be that provider must make it clear for you.

moonrakerz

If an ATM operator wants to put an ATM on the top of Ben Nevis, I don't have a problem with him charging a reasonable - and clearly signed - fee.
I do have a bit of a problem with fee paying machines replacing free ones. This usually occurs in less prosperous areas, so the people who can least afford it have to pay to get at their own money.

Another underhand trick is spreading on some shopping "sites". The owner/landlord of the site stops shop tenants from giving "cash-back". The shopper has to then go to a fee paying machine on the site- sometimes pre-existing free machines have actually been removed. The site owner/landlord and the machine operator then split the fee between them. Some of the biggest names in UK retailing are involved in this nice little earner.

Never mind Customer Service - just rip him off !

Bernard_Coleslaw

grumbler wrote:

Some controversial opinion - just to keep the thread afloat....

Only ATMs located in/outside banks must be free. For all other ATMs provider is free to decide whether to charge or not; the only condition should be that provider must make it clear for you.

Not controversial as far as I'm concerned. As long as consumers have adequate choice and any fees are made clear before you use a machine, I have no problem with fee-charging ATMs.

At some point someone will say "But you're charging me a fee to get my own money!" But that's the whole principle - you're not getting your money at the point of withdrawal - the machine operator is paying you and then claiming funds from your card issuer. This can't be done for free.

I've no problem with fees, as long as they're reasonable and I'm told about them so I can make an informed choice.

BC

PBA

moonrakerz wrote:

Another underhand trick is spreading on some shopping "sites". The owner/landlord of the site stops shop tenants from giving "cash-back". The shopper has to then go to a fee paying machine on the site- sometimes pre-existing free machines have actually been removed. The site owner/landlord and the machine operator then split the fee between them. Some of the biggest names in UK retailing are involved in this nice little earner.

Do you care to name some names? The only big names in retailing who have ever given cashback, as far as I can recall, are the supermarkets, all of whom still offer cashback (and often have their own, free, ATMs outside the store). Which big names have stopped giving cashback?

sujman

In my limited experience, although fee charging cash machines do inform you of fees just before you hit the "OK" button, it is not always clear that the machine is fee charging before you put your card in and start the process.

Machines use rather underhand tactics in displaying in large signage "Free Balances" etc, giving the impression that cash withdrawl is free also.

By the time you realise it is fee charging, you are 95% through the process of withdrawing the cash and more often than not, you agree to pay when you may not have, had you know from the outset that a fee was payable.

moonrakerz

PBA wrote:

Do you care to name some names? The only big names in retailing who have ever given cashback, as far as I can recall, are the supermarkets, all of whom still offer cashback (and often have their own, free, ATMs outside the store). Which big names have stopped giving cashback?

I didn't say that everyone who gave cash-back, has stopped, I said that at certain sites this is happening.

Many places will give cash-back if you ask, its just that most people usually get cash back in the supermarket when they are there, and the supermarkets want to get rid of the cash (thats why they push this service) - it simplifies their banking arrangements.

Try getting cash-back at some motorway service areas - you could at one time - look for free cash machines there as well - they are vanishing. One VERY large UK retail chain has been told to stop (and has) giving cash-back at its motorway outlets by the site operator. At the nearest services to my home, I was told that * & * can no longer give cash-back, the free cash machine has been replaced by a fee charging machine and the site operator has come to a "commercial arrangement" with the cash machine operator.

The same thing could well be happening at many sites - railway stations, airports, shopping malls, outlet villages etc, etc. The problem is that the public are being manipulated and they don't realise it. Fee paying machines are spreading and other ways of getting at your cash free, ie: cash-back, are now being attacked by fee charging cash machine operators.

If your local shopping mall put its parking charges up from £1 to £2.75 it would probably put a lot of people off going there. However, if you can push visitors into paying £1.75 to get their cash out of a machine whilst they are there - object achieved !, and the shopper hasn't actually had to hand over hard cash, he got fleeced at the cash machine and probably didn't even realize it.

To go back to PBA's original point - suppose the "bean counters" at the large supermarkets suddenly realise that there is money to be be made here. No cash-back at the till - the bank/building society cash machines in the supermarket car park vanish - some nice shiny fee charging machines appear inside the supermarket. The supermarkets must keep driving their profits up, if
they could make just a tiny percentage of the people who come through their doors use a fee charging cash machine, there are HUGE sums of money to be made.

1% of supermarket visitors X £1.75 = £MMMMMMMMM

I'm not saying they are going to do this, but if they do - you read it here first !

MSE_Martin

To add my two-penneth. I don't object to fee charging cash machines, providing a. the fee is proportionate b. the fee is explicitely stated.

I don't ever use fee paying machines because i dont want to pay the fee. What's annoying is the sheer misleading nature of when they charge or don't. The colour coding system is important.

Yet i very strongly want banks to continue to offer the free access and if my bank stops i will leave.

martin

grumbler

MSE_Martin wrote:

...The colour coding system is important. ...

What about some bank's remote ATM that charges everybody besides this bank's customers? We are not animals and can read. Wouldn't an explicit warning on the 'welcome' screen be sufficient?

P.S.

MSE_Martin wrote:

...a. the fee is proportionate

Many countries (Easern Europe, for example) tried to build their economy entirely on planning, i.e. calculating every cost, fee and price. They failed. In a market economy it is market that decides what is proportionate and what is not. Yes, some things should be regulated even in a market economy, but not such small ones as ATM fees.
I am sorry, it was not my intention to give lectures ... . And I never use fee-charging ATMs too. This is very easy.

trigger_mike

I find it bad that you pay the same fee weather you withdraw £10 or £200, to get charged £1.50 on a tenner is a bit over the top.