Banks are kind of shitty here - if you use another bank’s ATM, your bank (or the other, or sometimes both) will charge a small fee. Usually it’s something like $3, but some smaller banks and credit unions will actually pay all of those fees back, so a lot of folks don’t even notice that it’s there.
This specific situation is weird because it’s a dispensary, though. Thanks to the vagaries of local legality and federal illegality, the dispensaries are totally good selling drugs, but the banks are very much not good openly handling the payments for those drugs. Because of this, most dispensaries will contract their debit payments through a payment processor that can register their card readers as “cashless ATMs,” and who will effectively launder all of their debit transactions. The end result of this is that while the customer can pay with a card like a normal store, they end up having to choose between paying the ATM fee at the ATM, or at the register.
The situation makes sense from the pov of the banks. They get to charge you more and get that money instantly for the same transaction.
How it should be: most customers use cash, sometimes they use a card and the dispensary sends a small amount of money (at the end of the month) to the bank for being involved in the process.
How it is: everyone uses an ATM as individuals and get charged a huge non-negotiable fee for that and the banks make money the moment you withdrawal any.
Always look at who gains from a situation to understand the situation.
It got a lot worse in 2008. The federal government shutdown about a third of the banks for not being big enough and with the drop in market competition they started slapping fees on everything.
ATM fees in the US have been a thing since ATMs have been a thing. It’s not new and didn’t start in the great recession.
And what do you mean by the government shutting down banks? Banks were killing themselves by doing dirty financial tricks and approving garbage loans and playing hot potato amongst each other with them.
Stress tests. Go read up on it. About 1/3 of banks, almost all midtier, were shutdown by the US government after the crisis has passed. Leaving places like Goldman (which caused the problem to begin with) with less competition. There are less baking companies in the US now then in 2007.
You get charged for a cash withdrawal? That’s rare here in the UK.
Charged by the ATM and sometimes also charged by your bank for using an ATM
It’s a scam
“This is America.”
Most do. I use a bank that reimburses the costs.
America’s national motto is “Yup, there’s a fee for that!”
Banks are kind of shitty here - if you use another bank’s ATM, your bank (or the other, or sometimes both) will charge a small fee. Usually it’s something like $3, but some smaller banks and credit unions will actually pay all of those fees back, so a lot of folks don’t even notice that it’s there.
This specific situation is weird because it’s a dispensary, though. Thanks to the vagaries of local legality and federal illegality, the dispensaries are totally good selling drugs, but the banks are very much not good openly handling the payments for those drugs. Because of this, most dispensaries will contract their debit payments through a payment processor that can register their card readers as “cashless ATMs,” and who will effectively launder all of their debit transactions. The end result of this is that while the customer can pay with a card like a normal store, they end up having to choose between paying the ATM fee at the ATM, or at the register.
The situation makes sense from the pov of the banks. They get to charge you more and get that money instantly for the same transaction.
How it should be: most customers use cash, sometimes they use a card and the dispensary sends a small amount of money (at the end of the month) to the bank for being involved in the process.
How it is: everyone uses an ATM as individuals and get charged a huge non-negotiable fee for that and the banks make money the moment you withdrawal any.
Always look at who gains from a situation to understand the situation.
It got a lot worse in 2008. The federal government shutdown about a third of the banks for not being big enough and with the drop in market competition they started slapping fees on everything.
Never forget what the economists took from us.
ATM fees in the US have been a thing since ATMs have been a thing. It’s not new and didn’t start in the great recession.
And what do you mean by the government shutting down banks? Banks were killing themselves by doing dirty financial tricks and approving garbage loans and playing hot potato amongst each other with them.
Stress tests. Go read up on it. About 1/3 of banks, almost all midtier, were shutdown by the US government after the crisis has passed. Leaving places like Goldman (which caused the problem to begin with) with less competition. There are less baking companies in the US now then in 2007.