The automatic teller machine and I did not become friends quickly. At first I was afraid that it would not give me the exact amount I requested but that it would charge me the full amount. Eventually I overcame this fear. Only once did I find the machine jammed and I got less than requested. This turned out to be a pleasant experience, for even on a Sunday, someone at the bank headquarters took my call in person and the money was quickly replaced in my account.
Since its inauguration, the ATM has been helpful to me in finding and in the mean time i have desire to campaign to make the screen more friendly. For example, I had two ATM cards and, at my suggestion in my column, one of them changed the screen to say "Hello Deva," while the other still just said "Dev" when I put in my card. After that I always used the former, for I like to feel that I am using the bank that knows me personally.
I have not had as much success with my second idea: Where the ATM screen now says: "transaction being processed," I want it to say: "I am thinking this over." Again I feel such a touch personalizes the bank and, heaven knows, banks need to be perceived as more human. Through the years I have had my fights with the ATM. I have been annoyed at the sign on the ATM when I have approached it at lunch time: "Closed for Balancing." Why close at a time when most customers come? It is like the way many bank branches at shopping malls close about 5 p.m. This amazes retailers who wonder why the bank closes just when the customers begin to show up.
But my biggest fight with the ATM was a few years back when a machine chewed up my card on a Saturday afternoon. I hit the machine, yelled at it, and finally called the bank. The response, of course, was a recorded message: "We are closed until Monday morning."
First thing Monday morning, I called the bank and actually talked to a human.
The lady was pleasant, but she ruefully said, "I am sorry, your card has been with us more than 24 hours, so it has been chewed up in the chewer-upper."
I asked, "Why don't you have an emergency number so I can call immediately when the card is swallowed and thus keep it from being chewed in the chewer-upper?" (A process that we all know means it would be at least two weeks before I could get a new card.)
"We do have an emergency number for that purpose," she proudly explained.
"Where is it?" I asked
"On the card." (oh man, it’s really a sensible answer to hear!!)
But now, as additional grist for my love/hate affair with the ATM, I have learned of the newest round in the battle of the human being vs. the ATM.
Banks also have to contend with other indignities in offering the public the convenience of the ATM. First they face lawsuits from those who feel that the use of the ATM is a free good that should be offered without charge to all comers whether they have accounts with the bank or not. Next they have the job of protecting the users of their ATM's from being ripped off by thugs waiting outside of the kiosk who follow the old motto I slightly modified: "I rob the bank's customers because that is where the money is."
I doubt if these uses of bank property are examples of the fall service the banks were anxious to offer when they fought for broader powers than the traditional role of taking deposits and making loans. But who ever thought that the public would be sympathetic to bankers' problems?
By now, most people around the world have come to count on the ATM and expect it will work perfectly. I am always amazed at how easy it is to get local currency in some foreign country by simply putting in my card and the four-digit pin number. As any traveler can tell you, the rate of exchange is always far better than with travelers' checks or at a currency exchange office.
When I got local currency in Singapore in about four seconds, I was amazed. When I came home and met a friend who works for the operations department of that credit card network, I said, "It is amazing what you people can do with the satellite." He responded, "Oh no, the satellite is far too slow. The message would have to go up 90,000 km's then down to the switch, then up to the satellite and down to your bank before reversing the procedure. That's 7,20,000 km's, and the message can only go 1,86,000 km's/second. So we have to use fiber optics."
I still don't have the courage to make deposits through the ATM, but most people do. I know we have come a long way from the introduction of the ATM, but those initial days are of gloomy and ever green. Like a rocky marriage that goes on because each party wouldn't know what to do without the other, it has become a fixture in our lives….
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