ATM rip-off by US Bank
August 7, 2010 at 6:04 PM Leave a comment
By Getachew Teklu
I don’t know how you feel about it, but I really hate the idea of paying fees to use an ATM to get my own money from my bank. In fact, I have never paid any because faithfully using only my own bank’s ATM machines. However, on August 4, 2010 using US. Bank ATM machine to get $20.00 and charged $3.00 ATM Fee. My own bank Wells Fargo charge me another $2.50 to get my own money. The total cost to get $20.00 is $5.50. Last year ATM users paid fees that poured an estimated over $5 billion into financial institution coffers.
ATM are a cash cow for banks, and the fees are rising. The cost of using another bank’s ATM machine is now $3.00 per transaction, up from $1.00 just five years ago. You pay two fees when you stray from your own institution’s ATM. The first hit, charged by your own bank, is called the foreign, or “off-us,” fee; it currently averages $2.00 per transaction. (At big banks, the average is $2.50 to $3.00.) About 30 to 70 cents of this fee is known as the interchange fee and goes to the bank whose ATM you used as compensation for handling the transaction. Even if your bank does not charge you when you use another institution’s ATM, it pays this fee. The second fee, a surcharge imposed on you by the other bank for using its ATM, is now $2.00 ($3.00 for big banks like US Bank) These fees show up right on your ATM receipt. My advice to you minimizes the pain whenever possible; use your own bank’s or credit union’s ATM to avoid fees. Also try some of these tactics: Switch to a bank or credit union that doesn’t impose ATM surcharges. Generally, the larger the bank, the higher the fees. There is no stimulus package for consumer to recover ATM fees that is imposed by large banks like US Bank. No body can protect us from bank rip off at the moment.
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