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| ATM Finders |
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Banking September 1999 • Vol.5 Issue 9 |
ATM Finders Use The Internet To Make Your ATM Hunts Easier | ||
 Whether time or money is a priority in your life, the Internet can help you find more of both—especially when it comes to banking. If you spend a little time on the Internet, locating ATMs before you hit the streets with your card in hand, then you may never have to pound the pavement searching for an ATM again. Consider the following scenario. You drive all over town looking for a machine that takes your card. The boss is waiting for a report or the kids are standing on a street corner, so you finally decide just to use the first ATM you find. That sound you hear when you insert the plastic card into the machine is the whir of your money slowly being sucked away by high ATM charges. Yes, the banks at both ends of your transaction are probably going to charge you. You go through this time and time again, but you just keep telling yourself that the fees do not amount to that much money. Plus, you are saving valuable time, right? Thunk. Whir. Whimper. You're outta there until the next time.  Losing Money. But consider what these surcharges and interchange fees and the time you spend frantically searching for an ATM do to your calendar and your checking account. Without question, looking for an ATM eats time that most of us cannot spare. Figure a minimum of half an hour per week in ATM searches, and a couple of days have vanished from your life every year. ATMs also eat money you might want to spend somewhere else. Let's say that the average surcharge is $1.50, and every off-use fee (the fee for not using your bank's teller machine) averages $1.15. That is a $2.65 hit for each visit to an ATM not affiliated with your home banking institution. If you visit weekly, as many do, that equates to nearly $137.80 per year contributed to a financial institutions for no good reason. Smart Banking. This is why it is smart to spend some prep time on the Internet. The Internet can help you streamline your ATM visits and even save you money. Most Internet ATM searches begin with a search engine. We started with Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com) and Looksmart (http://www.looksmart.com). One site lead to another. We visited a wide range of ATM-locator sites for banks, credit cards, credit unions, and some helpful surcharge-free sites that promised to save us money and time.
If you want a backup resource or two for locating banks and their ATMs, try the EDS ATM Locator at http://www.eds.com/atmlocator. When you visit this site, select a country, then put in the state, ZIP code, or any other pertinent information. (When we tested this site, the directory seemed more useful for large cities rather than small towns. It brought up hundreds of ATM locations in Chicago, for example, but missed most of the ATMs in small towns.) Another good site is the STAR ATM Locator at http://www.star-system.com/html/atm.html. You can use this site to locate ATMs that are part of the Star System of regional ATMs in specific states. Search by specific states in the west, midwest, southeast, east, and southwest. Click the Star Network Participants link on the left side of the page to see if your state is a participant. This site also provides a MapQuest map of locations. If you are looking for ATMs for a specific bank, you may want to try the bank's Web site. For example, Citizens Bank patrons can search four northeastern states for ATM locations by going to Citizens Branch/ATM Locator at http://www.citizensbank.com/locator/index.html. Patrons of CompuBank can locate surcharge-free ATMs by state by visiting the eCommCenter at http://www.ecommcenter.com/atm.cfm. Bank One customers can go to http://bankone.infonow.net/bin/findNow?CLIENT_ID=BANK_ONE_ATM_USA to locate ATMs for Bank One and other affiliated banks. ( NOTE: Most banks have searching capabilities that are similar to the ones on the sites below.) Credit Cards & Credit Unions. If you are a credit card user and want to locate cash machines, then you'll find that the Internet gives you access to some dynamite locators.
Visa. Visa users can locate ATMs by checking out a similar site at http://www.visa.com. Just scroll down to the Shortcuts option and click the ATM Locator link. Select a region from the drop-down menu, then a state, then enter a city or ZIP to get either a list of ATMs or a list with a map. This is a nifty list, but the site doesn't mention anything about surcharges. Discover. Discover card users can go to http://www.discovercard.com and click Cash Locator on the left menu for a quick trip to a page that lets you locate Discover cash machines by list or map. Credit Unions. If you are a credit union user, you can also find good ATM locators on the Internet. Visit the ATM Locator for the Credit Union National Association at http://www.cuna.org/data/consumer/atm/welcome.html to locate ATMs near you and to find some handy ATM safety tips. Money Savers. If you want to save money as well as time, the Internet can give you a leg up by helping you locate surcharge-free ATMs. These are machines that do not charge for letting you withdraw your own money. Rest assured that you are not the only ATM user to run screaming from the Banko Bandito with a handful of cash and an account full of charges. This is why some concerned citizens are mounting Internet sites to help you find cost-free ATMs. Surcharge issues. A good place to begin is with The ATM Channel from bankrate.com at http://www.bankrate.com/brm/rate/atm_chk_home.asp. This site provides some fascinating background on the surcharge issue and has an archive of stories about ATM experiences, ranging from the bizarre to the infuriating.
Surcharge resources. The ATM $urcharges site (http://www.atmsurcharges.com) is a great resource for free-ATM shoppers. The opening page of this site provides links to a discussion of surcharges, tips on fee avoidance, advocacy information, and a really excellent list of resources, including the status of ATM legislation, government-related ATM activities, reports, and hearing updates. If you follow the Finding Surcharge Free ATMs link, you will discover some marvelous links to no-surcharge alliances, links to individual state directories of alliances or surcharge-free institutions, and a terrific listing of Chicago-area free ATMs. Another good surcharge resource is the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) Web site (http://www.ibaa.org/atmsearch.html). Here, you will find a list of surcharge-free members of the ICBA. You can easily search by state for ICBA surcharge-free banks near you. A terrific resource for banks in the southeastern part of the United States is The ATM Surcharge Page at http://www.mindspring.com/~scline/bank/index.html. You will find a lively and irreverent approach to the topic, including a list of banks that charge nominal or no surcharges. You will also find some useful links to local alliances around the country. You will also want to check out The No-$urcharge ATM Alliance Directory at http://www.theco-op.org/index-ns.html for a directory of states with such alliances. The states include Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Maryland, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. The listing of each state also includes an address for each member state. If you bank at a credit union, try the ATM Locator on the CO-OP Network (http://209.24.187.89/web/coop/search.html). Search for a Co-op ATM or for a no-surcharge alliance-member institution by any of the following: credit union name, bank name, retail outlet name, address, city, or state. Just entering the name of a city will produce a list, and you can follow a link to Excite (http://www.excite.com) for a map to the location.  by Sharon Shaw |
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