ATMs very rarely inform users before they put their card in the slot whether it’s the kind of machine that uses a motor to suck your card into the machine. If yes, then avoiding the machine is a good idea.
The question is, how do you find out in advance whether the machine has a motor? Obviously if you test it on your actual valid bank card that you intend to use for the transaction, you may not get it back.
So my first thought was carry expired old bank cards which can be sacrificed. Stick the card in and if a motor pulls it in, hit the cancel button and try it on the next ATM until you find an ATM that does not suck the card in. This still has issues. The machine can vary well confiscate the card merely on the basis of being expired (thus invalid). Sure, it’s a sacrificial card but I don’t have 100+ such cards to spare. And also those dead cards will have my name on them and the ATM network could blackball my name.
So my next thought is to cut a rectangle from a plastic food container to use as a dummy card. It’s still dicey because criminals are deliberately sticking thin plastic sheets into card slots to cause the next real inserted card to get jammed (this is in fact one of many reasons why legit users should avoid the motorised card slots in the first place). But if you cause things to jam up, you could get treated like a criminal (camera → facial recognition… etc).
Maybe loyalty cards… grab a stack of loyalty cards from a grocery store and use those as dummy cards. Better ideas?
Is this some kind of phobia? Have you never got your card back before?
I have actually never had an ATM tell me the truth about why it rejected my card as long as I can remember. And the false reasons for rejection that are given sometimes match reasons that some ATMs warn they confiscate cards over. So yes, I have trust issues and seem to be developing a phobia.
I have also on one occasion asked for more than the bank’s limit. I did that 3 times consecutively and the bank’s AI algorithm decided that looked like fraud and froze my account. That’s poor judgement on the part of the bank but the ATM network makes similar poor judgements. When speaking to the bank, the banker actually did not know why the mysterious black box algo decided to freeze my account because the bankers themselves are kept in the dark about it. He could only offer guesses. He said “why did you try a different machine? That’s suspicious; you should have stayed with the same machine”. I had little confidence in his guesswork. So in fact he could not even tell me how to avoid getting my acct frozen in the future.
I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but if you need to withdraw more money than the atm allows, you can walk into the bank and go to a teller and empty your whole account. Part of the reason for the limit on the atm is so it doesn’t run out of money before the end of the day.
I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but if you need to withdraw more money than the atm allows, you can walk into the bank and go to a teller and empty your whole account.
There are bank limits at ATMs and also separate limits set by the ATM operators themselves. In the msg you are replying, I described exceeding the bank’s limit when using ATMs (which was lower than the limit of the ATM itself in that case). I was in a foreign country pulling out foreign currency. There is no foreign branch for the bank.
W.r.t. emptying your whole account, I suspect you are talking from a US standpoint. A European who tries that will be turned away. Someone tried (in Belgium) asking for €10k cash of her own money over the counter. The bank refused and also called the police. The police interrogated her and made a report. She was not charged with anything though. In Belgium, cash transactions above €3k are unlawful so my guess is amounts above that are regarded as suspicious. Contracts with European banks include withdrawal limits.
Part of the reason for the limit on the atm is so it doesn’t run out of money before the end of the day.
I doubt empathy is why they have a limit. Why would they care? What I would expect them to care about is the fee revenue. The fee tends to be flat (DCC aside). So imposing a low limit forces more transactions, thus more fees.
ATM operators conceal¹ their limits but the rumour is that ATMs have much lower limits on foreign cards than domestic cards. The ATM charges no fee on eurozone cards and has a €2k² limit for those cards, but foreign cards have a €500² limit (which they collect a ~€4 fee from). Because of that fee, of course it’s in the consumer’s interest to make a large withdrawal to minimise their net overhead. And of course ATM operators want the contrary.
¹ Geldmaat even lies about their limits, I believe. According to the geldmaat.nl website, there is no ATM-imposed limit. They claim consumers are limited only by their bank’s limit. I don’t believe the claim. I’m sure they are lying.
² According to rumour.
Geez. Guess the skimming got so rampant they couldn’t even figure out a good algorithm for a card that needs to be taken or not. I can’t say I’ve came across one that takes your card in a while though just the ones that lock in to read the chip.
All the banks have gotten real strict though in spending and withdrawing.
I’ve came across one that takes your card in a while though just the ones that lock in to read the chip.
I don’t understand. What do you mean “lock in to read the chip”? Is the card ½ exposed so you can remove it?
I just got an idea: suppose a hole is punched or drilled into the card like they do with badges, and a cable is attached to it. I wonder if improper confiscation could be prevented this way.
Yeah it locks it there so you can’t pull it out while it’s reading the chip and you’re putting your PIN in. It’s flush with the reader with the middle part exposed for grabbing.
That could work just depends on how those rollers function for the card lol.
You know they spit the cards back out after you finish your transaction, right?
Not necessarily. The machine has a choice whether to give your card back or not. In Netherlands 4 out of ~17 ATM withdrawal attempts succeeded. A couple of the machines that rejected my perfectly valid and funded card did not have a motor, so there was no confiscation risk. A couple were Geldmaat machines, which do have the confiscation mechanism. They don’t disclose that on the machines but the website mentions it. I got lucky and Geldmaat returned my card. But the reason it gave for rejecting the card is the same reason some machines will confiscate cards. I was lucky I was able to get my card back and use an ATM by a different operator, which accepted my card. Had the ATM confiscated the card, I would not have had the chance to try other ATMs.
… the kind of machine that uses a motor to suck your card into the machine. If yes, then avoiding the machine is a good idea.
Why should I be avoiding them? In my area, this is 98% of ATMs.
- Low-tech criminal inserts a sleeve into the slot that adds enough pressure that the motor cannot eject your card. The card works while it’s inserted so they can shoulder-surf PIN entry. User walks away without their card because it is stuck. Criminal returns with an extraction tool (like tweezers). They then have your card (and also your PIN if you didn’t cover your hand well). Obviously the card grab technique only works if the card ends up getting inserted completely into the slot. The non-motorised ATMs leave your card ½ sticking out, so you can always get a grip on it and thus are not vulnerable to this card theft.
The biggest threat is not criminals but the ATM operators themselves. ATMs that suck the card in have a card confiscation mechanism that is usually undisclosed¹. Some of the (foolish) reasons ATMs will confiscate your card:
- you enter the PIN incorrectly²
- the machine thinks your card is faulty or invalid
- some AI algo suspects your card is being used fraudulently
¹ I once encountered an ATM that had a sign posted saying “reasons why this machine will confiscate your card: …” and it listed the above 3 reasons. In that case, it was disclosed and I opted to avoid that machine. But usually it’s undisclosed. E.g. a vast majority of Dutch ATMs are all by the same company “Geldmaat”. None of those ATMs disclose potential for confiscation but if you look at the geldmaat.nl faq, they admit to it but they conceal the reasons, so customers don’t know what risk they are signing up for with those machines. When the confiscation happens you cannot get your card back. It’s simply destroyed by the ATM operator and you have to ask your bank for a replacement.
² (edit) incorrect PIN could perhaps be a good reason. If you are being forced by a thief to pull cash out, then deliberate incorrect entry could be a way to avoid paying the thief and the confiscation relieves you of repeated trials. But it’s still disturbing that banks are not wise enough to give people distress PINs (a special PIN that lowers the limit and sends a silent alarm signal, but pays out for safety).
I would definitely go with a loyalty card. In case you get hassled about it, you have a plausible excuse: you grabbed the wrong card.
Empty giftcards and prepaid credit cards.
