ATM breakdown
Self-Serve ATMs would probably be introduced in Singapore next year. They are supposed to be multi-functional, and you can even deposit cheques and pay bills on top of other normal activities. One point made by the interviewee on Channelnewsasia.com said that the traffic in Orchard Road is very high, and it would be unacceptable for ATMs to break down.
I think this is an important point. For a bank to be fully mobile, the ATMs should be up 99% of the time. I had met with an unpleasant experience with a bank which I had mentioned before with cute ATM messages. I needed to put in funds into my account so that my cheque would not bounce. As I had not set up an account on my Internet banking, I needed to put funds manually into the account. To my frustration, the ATM machine at location B was spoilt. The next nearest location I knew was in location A. The bank put a notice informing the customers to go over to location A. It was not that far away, but I would have to pay additional parking charges at the new location.
Since I needed to put the money in urgently, I drove over to location A. I was extremely frustrated when I saw that both ATMs were down there as well. The notice at location A told customers to go to location B. I flared up. There happened to be some bank officers on duty, but they were more of customer service staff than actual bank tellers, so I marched over to them and asked one of them how long it would take for the ATMs to be ready. She said it would be repaired in three hours, because it was a Sunday. When I told her that I had just come over from location B because of the notice, she apologised that she only just found out that the ATM at B was down. After I asked her where else I could go to to deposit my money, she said I had to go down to Orchard. I didn’t have so much time so I was very angry. I would not be able to deposit the money the next day before 3pm as I had to work. As a result, I had to call up the other party to ask the person to bank in the cheque after 3pm, just so that it would not bounce. This was an embarrassing situation.
The next day, I figured out that the machines should have been repaired by then, so despite driving past location A, I chose to go to location B as it was easier to park for short period of time. To my anger, the machine was still down. The banking hours were over, but the bank was still opened for other investment services. I decided to calm myself down and just went into the bank to try my luck and if not, to lodge a complaint. Thank goodness the bank teller accepted my deposit.
Imagine my disgust when I went to location B again, one week later, and found the ATM was down again. How can the largest bank in the world have such lousy ATMs? If customers cannot withdraw money easily or draw money easily, then what is the point? When I tried to deposit money at location A again, the machine was finally ready, but it was out of paper. Such a standard of service for a major bank was unacceptable to me. The final straw came when the high interest rates promised earlier fell by 0.8% to 1.2%. This amount is dependent on a few factors, such as increasing deposits each month, or a minimum of $20000 in the bank.
I am going to stick to an online bank, which promises a constant 1% for any amount at all times.
I definitely hope that the bank will do something about it. Reading about its woes in Fortune magazine makes me wonder whether the operations in Singapore would be affected.
Going back to the self-serve ATM, I hope it will raise the standards for other banks, though the cost should definitely not be passed on to the consumers.
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I do check all my credit card bills. However I don’t check supermarket bills. I try to look at the prices displayed on their cashier when they scan the items’ barcode. Another thing I check but always get quite frustracted is the Posbank passbook entries. It is so encrypted and the acronyms just always cannot be found in the list at the back of the passbook.