cross-posted from: https://fedia.io/m/privacy/t/346211
I need to check the balance of my bank card. It’s apparently becoming quite rare for ATMs to support balance inquiries. So as I try many different ATMs to check the balance, some ATMs demand PIN entry before you even see the service offers. So I enter my PIN and then it only gives a cash withdrawal option, at which point I eject.
Couple problems here:
anti-fraud AI sensors can be very fragile & trigger happy. If my card is inserted into several different ATMs with & no transaction is initiated, I am of course concerned that my account will be frozen due to fraud false positive.
some ATMs automatically print out your balance on the receipt if you ask for a receipt. Some show it on the screen Some ATMs will only print the balance on the receipt if you specifically requested the balance in your session. Some ATMs are completely incapable of balance inquiries (at least for cards from other banks). Consumers seem to have no way of knowing what kind of ATM they are dealing with in advance, which forces us to experiment.
Questions:
when an ATM demands PIN in advance, does that mean the transaction will signal the bank even if the session is terminated when the menu shows no balance inquiry option? IIUC, the PIN can be verified using the cards EMV chip without using the network - but is that necessarily the case?
when an ATM shows the menu options before asking for a PIN, can we count on no signal being sent to the bank?
One of my accounts got frozen for fraud. I called the bank, complained, demanded answers. The bankers themselves are kept in the dark and left guessing about what happened. One banker said “you asked for more than the daily limit 2 or 3 times, which failed, then you went to a different ATM and tried again. Since you went to a different machine, that likely looked like fraud”. (of course I tried a different machine – why would a legit user keep trying the same machine?)
Definitely find another bank or even better, a credit union. Most of what you’ve described raises red flags. I prefer the step of confirmation to access any data regarding held accounts but the rest of it is suspicious.
The long-term plan is of course to ditch the account. At the moment I’m in a pinch and just need an ATM that works. It’s a bit alarming how little knowledge and information is available on ATMs. The non-transparency is in itself a privacy issue.
I don’t think credit unions exist in my country. But it’s worth noting that credit unions in the US have a whole different set of pitfalls. They are typically too small to offer their own services. Credit unions outsource everything: bill pay, statement printing, the website, email… They do nothing in-house. All that outsourcing means copious information sharing with giant centralized corporations that monetize your data.