| Christina |
Sep 22nd, 2007 05:46 AM |
You just have to look for a bank name on the ATM, that's all. Maybe you won't know all the names of banks in some foreign country, but I think they are always fairly obvious as to whether they are an ATM from a real bank or not. If you've been in a place a bit, one probably has run across the standard bank names, also.
It isn't difficult to figure them out in the US (the name bancomat clearly isn't any official bank name, and that's a name just used in Europe or elsewhere for this type of machine, I know I've seen it), but for locals in the US, they aren't always a bad idea, actually. They can have a lower transaction fee than the real bank ATMs, if you don't happen to have a card for the bank that is running the ATM. I know in my grocery store, there is a private ATM right next to the local bank's one, which is my bank. I wondered why so many folks were using the private ATM, if they didn't know what they were doing or what. Then I read the screens and noticed that the fee was actually lower on the private ATM than the bank one, if you didn't have that bank's card (maybe $1.50 versus $2).
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