I was at my bank’s ATM and on the way out I saw a bank worker with some fliers, and a clipboard. I tried not to make eye contact but she called me out and asked if I had time for a question. When I tried to mumble something about going to work, she then put up her hand, raised three fingers and said “Just THREE questions.” I’m not sure why she thought that three would be better than one, but I do kind of wonder what they would’ve been.
The last three or four times I cashed in my change I didn’t guess the amount correctly so every time I’ve changed my method of counting in hopes that there’d be fewer mistakes made along the way. Yet I was still off by a whole ten dollars. I’m starting to think that the machines don’t count the change correctly.
Now on top of that TD Bank is charging for non-customers. I guess it makes sense since they were really getting nothing out of it before except for a whole lot of coins but it still kind of sucks. I guess I’ll just start giving exact change now instead of paying with the big bills. Does this mean I need to start carrying a coin purse?
Seems in these tough economic times the banks have DOUBLED their ATM fees. Ironic that the expensive deli fees are now probably the lowest in the city. Of course I don’t use a bank other than my own unless absolutely necessary, but I’ll never do the three dollars. Seriously, three dollars? Couldn’t do it in increments of 50 cents? Or even an increment of a dollar first?
I cashed in my change again, but I was off by about four dollars. Someday the Commerce piggy bank will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.
Consider this a public service announcement. The Apple Bank on 14th street has the highest ATM fee I’ve ever seen. It might as well been a service charge of being paddled because it was a fee of $2.50!!!!!! Needless to say I didn’t accept due to the fact that if I walked another block I’d be paying at least one dollar less.
I might be the only one who does this, but sometimes when I get to an ATM and have to swipe my card to open the door, but see that someone else has taken the front spot at the ATM door I’ll pretend to continue to fidget for my wallet when really I’m just waiting for the other guy to do it. It seems really stupid, kind of like how you reach for your wallet even if you know the other person is going to pay at a restaurant. I guess it’s not the same thing, but this three way ATM thing did actually happen to me yesterday but someone on the inside ended up coming out so the point was moot anyway.
Apparently this happened ages ago without my knowledge until I actually used a Washington Mutual ATM recently. Ages ago meaning since last November or so according to this article. I could scarcely believe it because it felt like the last time I used one of their ATMs I swore there weren’t any fees. Is it possible I previously hadn’t used one of their ATMs for two or so months before this week? Funky.
No, I wasn’t and still have never been mugged *knock on wood*. But I did go to an M&T ATM to discover that they’re committing highway robbery along with HSBC and the Virgin Megastore. I understand when you’re an obscure deli and you charge $1.75 or sometimes $2.00 for an ATM fee, but real banks have no business doing this. HSBC charges $1.75 and the weird one at the Virgin Megastore in Union Square I think is even over $2.00 which is just so ridiculous to me.
Long live Washington Mutual and the $0.99 ATMs at McDonalds!
On Wednesday I had the rather annoying discovery that Citibank closes at 4:00 pm on that particular day. Of course, I got there at 4:10 and the guard turned me away. So I went at 2:00 pm during my lunch break today to get my ATM card. Forty-Five minutes later I got to the front of the line. Yup, that’s right.
Apparently half the freshman population of NYU was at Citibank yesterday to open a bank account. Bearing this in mind Citibank opted to not have any kind of separate line for new NYU students to expedite matters for the students and non-students alike. I was in line for about fifteen minutes when one of the Citibank employees comes by to ask if anyone in line was there to pick up their student package. Four people in front of me were suddenly gone, but I was still only third in line.
At the desk there were two people. One old guy was helping out this other guy who was at the desk for THIRTY-FIVE minutes, and there was a woman who had the distinction of looking like she wasn’t actually doing that much. At one point there was a guy who was in line who got out and went behind the counter. When the woman was done with her customer she started waiting on him, so the woman behind me went to the desk and started bitching them out. As it turned out that guy had been there earlier in the morning and had been told to come straight to the desk. It still felt good to see.
Finally I got my turn and then I had to wait another ten minutes for her to go to the vault to get my card ’cause apparently they lock them all up. After that ten minutes I was gone with most of my lunch break completely wasted. Grrrr.
