Peter T. Daniels wrote:

Here, smaller branches may have only a single ATM, and there are ones
not physically attached to a bank (for instance in retail locations),
but many city bank branches have lobbies, accessible after-hours with
the ATM card, with several ATMs.

It may just be me or my banks, but my experience in the UK is that lobbies
are being steadily phased out by banks, sometimes by refurbishment,
sometimes by simply fully locking the door overnight. Several of my banks
are also making it almost impossible to deposit out of hours, whether by
removing lobbies, sealing letter boxes and/or withdrawing the ability to
deposit cheques & notes through ATMs.

For withdrawing cash there's usually enough open air machines, but every so
often the banking industry threatens to remove the LINK agreement that
allows people to use different banks' ATMs without charge and intoduce fees,
sometimes with the appalling title of "disloyalty fees". This is especially
annoying if you live in a suburb where your own bank hasn't bothered to
establish a small branch because there are large branches in neighbouring
suburbs to handle business and, crucially, enough branches from other banks
plus standalone ATMs that customers needing instant access to cash are
currently served well enough without fees.

In message , at 17:09:16 on Mon, 9 Jan
2012, Tim Roll-Pickering remarked:
It may just be me or my banks, but my experience in the UK is that lobbies
are being steadily phased out by banks, sometimes by refurbishment,
sometimes by simply fully locking the door overnight.

The only UK bank that I'm aware of that ever had lobbies was Lloyds (and
they needed an ATM card swipe to get in). The practice in other
countries of having a lobby open 24x7 which was separately doored off
from the bank itself never caught on.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:

It may just be me or my banks, but my experience in the UK is that lobbies
are being steadily phased out by banks, sometimes by refurbishment,
sometimes by simply fully locking the door overnight.

The only UK bank that I'm aware of that ever had lobbies was Lloyds (and
they needed an ATM card swipe to get in). The practice in other countries
of having a lobby open 24x7 which was separately doored off from the bank
itself never caught on.

Midland/HSBC were quite big on them back in the 1990s - it was one of the
reasons I took my first child account with them. They were originally ATM
card accessible but following cases of fake machines designed to capture
card details being placed on doors in the mid 2000s they moved over to a
completely open-access, press a button model. Then they found the lobbies
were becoming unsafe and nasty - I wonder why - and so moved to phase them
out altogether.

Halifax also had some lobbies back then and a few survive to this day.

"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote in message
...
Roland Perry wrote:


Midland/HSBC were quite big on them back in the 1990s - it was one of the
reasons I took my first child account with them. They were originally ATM
card accessible but following cases of fake machines designed to capture
card details being placed on doors in the mid 2000s they moved over to a
completely open-access, press a button model. Then they found the lobbies
were becoming unsafe and nasty - I wonder why - and so moved to phase them
out altogether.


My local HSBC had a lobby which was removed and replaced with outside ATMs a
year or two back. I didn't know abut the fake machines outside lobbies
although I have heard of similar scams to capture card details.
Incidentally most HSBC branches still have ATMs inside and in my experience
tend to be laid out to dissuade customers from joining a queue and dealing
with a human

Martin

My local HSBC had a lobby which was removed and replaced with outside ATMs a
year or two back. I didn't know abut the fake machines outside lobbies
although I have heard of similar scams to capture card details.

ObNYC: A Romanian guy was arrested for putting skimmers on 40 ATMs at
HSBC branches in downstate NY and making cloned ATM carss, then
stealing $1.5M from customer accounts. Details he

http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/arti...hp?art_id=4388

In the NY area, ATMs tend to be located in an inside lobby, with a
latch on the door you can open by swiping any ATM or credit card.

R's,
John

John Levine wrote:
In the NY area, ATMs tend to be located in an inside lobby, with a
latch on the door you can open by swiping any ATM or credit card.

Not just an ATM or credit card -- anything with a magstripe.
Including a Metrocard, which has a totally different encoding scheme.

It's clear the door lock devices aren't reading your complete card
number, since you only have to put your card in a fraction of an inch
before the door unlocks.

Jimmy

On 10/01/2012 20:33, Jimmy wrote:
John wrote:
In the NY area, ATMs tend to be located in an inside lobby, with a
latch on the door you can open by swiping any ATM or credit card.

Not just an ATM or credit card -- anything with a magstripe.
Including a Metrocard, which has a totally different encoding scheme.

It's clear the door lock devices aren't reading your complete card
number, since you only have to put your card in a fraction of an inch
before the door unlocks.

Jimmy
I thought that you could run about any card through a magstripe reader
in order to gain access to a bank.

Also, even if it is indeed the case that people are hoping to clone your
card by replacing a real magstripe reader with a phony one, they still
need your number.

Martin Rich wrote:

Incidentally most HSBC branches still have ATMs inside and in my
experience tend to be laid out to dissuade customers from joining a queue
and dealing with a human

Nice - the Stratford (non-Westfield) branch still has the lobby layout and
the machines and receptionist point are clumped in such a way that at busy
times it's very difficult to even join the right queue. Conversely in the
new Westfield branch the layout makes it all too easy for roving staff to
pounce on you - something I find annoying when I'm just there to quickly use
the machines (especially the coin deposit machine as many other branches
don't have them).

On 09/01/2012 23:59, Martin Rich wrote:

"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote in message
...
Roland Perry wrote:


Midland/HSBC were quite big on them back in the 1990s - it was one of
the reasons I took my first child account with them. They were
originally ATM card accessible but following cases of fake machines
designed to capture card details being placed on doors in the mid
2000s they moved over to a completely open-access, press a button
model. Then they found the lobbies were becoming unsafe and nasty - I
wonder why - and so moved to phase them out altogether.


My local HSBC had a lobby which was removed and replaced with outside
ATMs a year or two back. I didn't know abut the fake machines outside
lobbies although I have heard of similar scams to capture card details.
Incidentally most HSBC branches still have ATMs inside and in my
experience tend to be laid out to dissuade customers from joining a
queue and dealing with a human

Martin
Much more prefer to just do it yourself, rather than deal with a nasty
human.

On Jan 9, 12:09*pm, "Tim Roll-Pickering" T.C.Roll-
wrote:
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
Here, smaller branches may have only a single ATM, and there are ones
not physically attached to a bank (for instance in retail locations),
but many city bank branches have lobbies, accessible after-hours with
the ATM card, with several ATMs.

It may just be me or my banks, but my experience in the UK is that lobbies
are being steadily phased out by banks, sometimes by refurbishment,
sometimes by simply fully locking the door overnight. Several of my banks
are also making it almost impossible to deposit out of hours, whether by
removing lobbies, sealing letter boxes and/or withdrawing the ability to
deposit cheques & notes through ATMs.

For withdrawing cash there's usually enough open air machines, but every so
often the banking industry threatens to remove the LINK agreement that
allows people to use different banks' ATMs without charge and intoduce fees,
sometimes with the appalling title of "disloyalty fees". This is especially
annoying if you live in a suburb where your own bank hasn't bothered to
establish a small branch because there are large branches in neighbouring
suburbs to handle business and, crucially, enough branches from other banks
plus standalone ATMs that customers needing instant access to cash are
currently served well enough without fees.

That all sounds utterly bizarre. Have your designers never heard of
electronic locks that will admit someone who has an ATM card to swipe?

Our banks encourage the use of ATMs so they can fire more and more
(low-paid anyway) tellers.

Some banks even pick up the fees charged to ATM-users who don't have
an account at the bank it belongs to.