Am I making this up? ATM charges around 1999

[gregdaviesiswonderful]

Having a disagreement with DH who thinks I'm making this up. It is entirely possible that I've misremembered this so wanted to check!!

Around the time I was at university (1999-2002) I was with NatWest who had a bank on campus.

I started off getting money out at various cash points around town as there was only a NW branch on campus, not in the local town.

Now, this is where I'm not sure my memory has failed me.... I distinctly remember after a term realising that every time I used a non NatWest ATM, I was charged (I have £10 flat fee in my head but this seems too much).

I remember my parents sitting me down and pointing out that I had spent over £100 just in charges to get money out as there wasn't a NatWest ATM in town.

So from then on in I always got money out on campus before heading into town for a night out.

My DH says this is bollocks and although atms have always had some that charge, there was never a time when bank 'brands' charged for not using their ATMs and the charges were minimal and hoc depending the machine you used.

Sooooo...
YANBU: I remember this also being the case
YABU: As DH says, charges have varied but not for the reasons you state.

OP I remember joining RBS in the mid-90s because I could use more cash machines for free.

The only issue is when I got given cheques where I stayed in London I had to get a bus to the nearest branch. However I calculated due to the small number of cheques I received the chances I would be in London would be very small.

This

I'm pretty sure NatWest charged 85p to use non NatWest machines. They weren't associated with the Link system. There were hardly any NatWest machines in Glasgow either.

No you are totally right, you had to use your own banks ATM. Can't remember it being that high though!

Maybe it was £1.85.

I remember the first (?) cash machines around 1970 wherein out your card in, the machine gave you £10 and kept the card that was mailed back to you

I'm so smugly reading these relies out to DH 😆

I'd completely forgotten this! I also remember finding a Link machine. Seems like utter madness now!

put your card in!!!!!

In fairness it was like a tenner back then. I remember clearly how high fees were.

I still get a pavlovian pleased response when I see an ATM is a HSBC one, because I know it'll be free. Even though it hasn't made a difference for about 20 years.

Yes - not £10 but this definitely was a ‘thing’.

NatWest and Midland were same network so those were ok but others weren’t.

I just read the obit of the guy who brought this in! The link network. He also invented the direct debit and the idea of using any cashpoint to get your money, not just the one at your own branch, founded the Fairtrade foundation and the "20 is plenty" speed reduction campaigns for residential streets. Interesting guy: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/alastair-hanton-obituary-ggqcd0kfs

Yes and banks used ‘link’ as a selling point. I remember checking further link logo before taking out cash.

I was with the Halifax in the 1990s. They used to charge 60p if you used a machine that wasn't theirs. Think it might have gone up to 90p or £1, then Link came in and it was free.

I went to a Scottish uni in the mid 90s and there wasn't a Natwest branch there when I first moved. I was able to use Clydesdale and RBS ATMs free of charge, but not Bank of Scotland.

No one had told me that the Scottish banks issued their own notes. I thought someone was trying to rip me off the first time I used a Clydesdale machine; it looked like monopoly money.

I had an RBS account because I lived in Scotland and went to Uni in London, and they had branches in both. This was mid-nineties. I could use Barclays and Lloyds ATMs but not NatWest - they hadn’t merged with RBS at that point. And of course they were the bank on campus. But I did have a favourite Lloyds cash point on Euston Road that dispensed fivers!

Yes. I had an Abbey national account and remember knowing that, of the 4 banks within 20 minutes of home I could use 2, maybe 3 for no charge. If I wanted to get money out of my Abbey National account, I had to either go into "town" (city centre) or go on a trek to the nearest town in the city which involved a big hill. I was lazy and chose the city centre because the bus stop was a minute or 2 walk away.
Think charges when I had no other choice were £2.

It used to be that you couldn't use certain machines at all- not just with a charge- just on different networks - I remember that if there was a group of you out you'd have to go to different machines. This would have been early 90s though - when you could get 5 pound notes from the machine as well.
The charging ones tended to be non-bank ones from memory inside shops etc- i rememebr being shocked!

Yes they did.

Yep, I banked with Midland and at the time could only take money out at a Midland, NatWest or TSB

Yes, I remember being at university and having to traipse around town on nights out looking for different ATMs because some of us needed Lloyds and some of us needed Midland.

Yes they did charge.

Banks also used to charge for everything, paying in, taking money out, cashing a cheque.

Then one started 'free' banking, and then the others followed.

There was a time where you could only use your own bank to get cash out, then they let you use others but charged, then there would be a small number of banks, then they all went free at around the time 'switch' became a thing, ie paying for your shopping with what we now call a debit card and getting cash back.

Yes I'm old, I used to pay for shopping with cheques knowing I had 3 - 4 days to get some money into my account.

Running ATMs is not cheap. The charging started because smaller institutions who had very few ATM's were costing those that had lots of ATMs across the country a fortune, and were refusing to accept increases to the fee that was paid to the owner of the ATM. Thankfully they eventually came to their senses and made bank/BS ATM usage free to the customer. It was around this time that the "non-bank" ATMs started appearing with a higher fee and these still exist today.

I remember the time well - I had to keep a list of those banks where I could use my card free, and I even opened a second account to enable use of a second group of ATMs.

Does anyone else remember banks having branches in some businesses?

I worked for the NHS and Midland Bank had an actual branch in the hospital, it was only open one day a week but you could cash cheques on payday.