Reader Drew went out of his way to ensure that he’d be able to get money from ATMs (using his Bank of America card), while on vacation. Despite his best efforts, he learned that a) putting a note on your account saying that you’ll be in England and b) drawing less than the maximum daily amount from your account is still not enough to keep BoA from putting a hold on your account. He’s written in with some advice for other Bank of America customers who are planning on traveling soon…
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Use Your ATM Card Once A Year To Keep It Valid
By 5.28.08
If you’re the type of person who never uses your ATM card—and we really mean never in this case, you might want to call your bank to find out if there’s a minimum activity threshold to hit to keep it from being deactivated. A reader tried to use her Bank of America ATM card recently and kept getting an “invalid transaction” error at every ATM. She called the number on the back of the card to ask what was going on: “I was told that since I hadn’t used my card in a couple of years it was closed, even though the expiration date is several years in the future, and I hadn’t received any note that suggested I should cut the card up into tiny pieces.”
Chase: Thanks For Depositing $3,193, Here's $200 In Non-Sufficient Funds Fees
By 5.27.08
Johanna deposited a financial aid check from her university into her Chase checking account. She’d done this before without incident, but this time something went wrong.
Chase Refuses To Shut Down Broken ATM Until You Threaten To Report Them To The FDIC
By 5.14.08
Reader Keith tried to get $120 from a downtown NYC Chase ATM, but the money door never opened. When he went inside to report the malfunction, the teller told him to go outside and wait. Keith thought he was waiting for someone to come fix the ATM or take his personal information. It turns out that he was just being ignored.
Switched To Fee-Free ATM Withdrawals
By 3.17.08
I’m sick of paying ATM fees so I just finished switching to my USAA debit card for my cash money needs. They refund up to $15 of ATM fees per month and don’t charge you any fees for using other people’s ATMs. I’m still keeping my WaMu account but I took my WaMu debit card out of my wallet and just funded my USAA account with some money. Not that I have a problem but I think this will also help reduce petty cash spending. Plus, by using cash more often that means I’m getting more change, and all my coin change goes into my piggy bank (60% full at the moment, looking forward to the day I take it to the Commerce Bank “Penny Arcade” coin-counting machine). With the specter of a recession giving us all wet willies, are you making any changes to your personal finance system?
Depositing Checks In A Bank Of America ATM Is A Huge Pain In The Butt
By 12.10.07
I thought I’d give your readers a heads-up on how much Bank of America sucks, and why you should make all deposits to a bank teller and never, ever at the ATM.
Bank of America’s Fraud Department Takes a Holiday
By 9.19.06
Reader Jessica is clearly a red-blooded American. She demands service, and above all, LABOR, from her fellow countrymen and -women, even on national holidays, especially on Labor Day.
The News; Impotent Indignation
By 6.21.06
• The news is not that a data breach at VISA had a data breach that caused consumer’s debit cards to get stolen, it’s that they’re actually finally formally announcing it. “Visa Says ATM Breach May Have Exposed Data” [CT]
New Debit Card, Same Balogna Baloney
By 6.1.06
We received our happy super fun awesome new Washington Mutual GOLD debit card today.
Time to Human vs. Time to Sentience
By 4.28.06
With debit card fraud on the rise, banks are getting way hardcore about putting stops on accounts if they notice any slight deviation from normal activity. Unfortunately, their customer service desks haven’t kept pace with the uptick.
After Losing Student’s Money, Citibank Badgers Him
By 4.24.06
Joseph is an American student stranded in in Germany after his meagre monies just got jacked via a Citibank security breach, one that Citibank would like to blame him for.
Software Weak Link in ATM Scam Fingered
By 3.20.06
The mystery third party transaction software provider implicated in the ATM debit card scam scandal may have been named by VISA.
Scamming ATM Cards for Fun and Profit
By 3.20.06
It’s a lot easier than you might think for the Ruskies to start vacuuming funds from your account after they steal the account number and PIN codes from Office Max.
ATM Scam UPDATE: Crooks Caught!
By 3.14.06
Rest a little easier, the “Russian Connection” ATM scammers have been captured.
ATM Hack Fallout
By 3.12.06
The ATM PIN block attacks has other consequences besides just your money getting siphoned off by scammers 2,000 miles away.
