

A Brief History of the ATM - jgrahamc
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/03/a-brief-history-of-the-atm/388547/?&single_page=true

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liyanchang
> For instance, they could easily jam or run out of product. They could
> erroneously dispense several bank notes instead of just one—all without the
> owner's knowledge.

I think this impresses me the most about ATMs. I've never personally
experienced an ATM dispensing incorrectly. In fact, it wasn't till many years
and many ATM transactions before it even occurred to me that mistakes could be
made.

I presume they don't happen very often because I have no idea what I would do
if something did happen? Who do I talk to if it debits 100 from my account but
only dispenses 80? What if it's a bank error in my favor? Is it mine to keep?

Unrelated - I now use my phone to deposit checks rather then the ATM.
Unrelated 2 - I now use ATMs to do currency exchange rather then dedicated
currency shops.

~~~
glesica
I had an ATM eat a check I tried to deposit once. I contacted the bank and
they had me give them the ATM location and date and approximate time of the
transaction, along with what I thought should have been the result (debiting N
dollars to my account). They debited my account immediately and then
investigated. A week or two later I got a letter saying that they'd found the
check and the debit would remain on my account.

My guess is that when problems do occur the banks are, generally, very
responsive about resolving them because a loss of confidence in ATMs would be
rather disastrous for retail banking in general.

~~~
surye
I had a much less pleasant experience, when an ATM ate my check. Basically
they would send a tech out in 3-6 hours, and retrieve the check, and give it
to me. Luckily I lived down the street so that wasn't that big of an
inconvenience, and they gave me a call, but I was pretty annoyed.

------
david-given
I had an uncle who was involved in the initial rollout of ATMs in the United
Kingdom, for one of the major banks here --- Barclays, maybe? He was
managerial track rather than engineering, but he'd still tell horror stories
about the high-level executive discussions about the fundamental technology.

Seems there were two choices: the one where PINs were held centrally and all
ATMs had to be connected to a phone line so they could validate them; or the
one where PINs and your balance were stored on the card, which allowed ATMs to
be completely disconnected and so be much more flexible (and cheaper).

Luckily they chose the right one.

Also I have heard, but cannot find a reference for right now, that due to a
bug they managed to issue a large proportion of the early cards all using the
same PIN. This was apparently the best kept secret in banking until they
managed to get them all changed. If anyone's heard of this, I'd love to know
more about what happened.

