Saswitch fees

While on the topic of banks...

I understand the reasoning behind Saswitch fees being levied on your account when drawing from another bank's ATM. And quite frankly, if you're too lazy to walk to the other end of the mall (OK, that might be a substantial distance: anybody been to Canal Walk lately?!) to an ATM of your own bank, then you deserve to get charged!!!

But, you've finally managed to get a few days of leave approved. You're out in the country, in that little Town-without-a-Name, situated more or less halfway between Big Nothing and Absolutely Nowhere. And guess what? Your particular bank didn't think to install an ATM of their own there. Or they did, but it's either out of order, out of service or out of money!!!

Am I alone in thinking that it is unfair then for your bank to levy the Saswitch fee against your account because they were basically incapable of delivering a service themselves?

ABSA ATMs packs more than cash

According to a post on wired.com (originally from Independent Online), ABSA installed some sort of pepper spray system at a few of their ATMs. This was done after several of their ATMs were bombed last year and a substantial amount of skimmers (devices that criminals install or attach to ATMs to facilitate duplication of cards) were found on other ATMs.

Now this is all good and well... Except that, as most of us know by now, this being South Africa, even the most well intentioned plans usually tend to go wrong. Sometimes horribly wrong, other times just slightly wrong. But most of the time, amusingly wrong!

Turns out, when a maintenance team went 'round to service one of these machines, they got a little more than they bargained for!!! Yup!!! They got a very unpleasant dose of pepper spray in the face!!!

While I do feel sorry for the guys who got sprayed, I also cannot help but wonder why the mechanism was triggered? Did the trigger mechanism just coincidentally malfunction when they were there? Did they forget to disarm the machine before trying to service it? Or did the trigger mechanism detect their actions as potentially criminal in nature and just did what it was installed to do in the first place?

So, next time you go draw money at an ABSA ATM, consider that, if you're not an ABSA customer, on top of being charged the Saswitch fee, you might potentially get pepper sprayed too!!! Sure does make driving a bit further down the road or walking to the other end of the mall to use your own bank's ATM just that little bit more appealing!!!