Bank of Ireland ATM madness

Our man in Havana

Who else here think the decision to close BOI atms at night and weekends is madness?

How is someone suposed to get money at night or the weekends? In my local area you need to drive an extra 10-15 miles to find a other bank atm to get cash.

Anyone know what "security issues" exist?

I think they have shot themselves in the foot and this move will alienate customers.

therecklessone

Bond-007 wrote:

Anyone know what "security issues" exist?

These ones:

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=a4zZE2dqLU6A&refer=europe

Our man in Havana

therecklessone wrote:

These ones:

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=a4zZE2dqLU6A&refer=europe

Whats so different about BOI atms that make them easier to steal?

Specky

Who else here think the decision to close BOI atms at night and weekends is madness?

It does seem a little odd to shut the machine's outside of branch hours when one of the original purposes of the machine was to provide a service when one is not available within the branch....but they are being attacked and stolen.

As far as I can determine from the banks (I've been trying to sell anti-fraud systems into the banks here for some time, including anti-ATM fraud stuff) this is the lowest cost option for them. It also sits well with current thinking on situational crime prevention, which proposes that the best way to prevent crime is to remove or reduce the opportunity rather than simply placing obstacles in the way of the criminal, who (with the necessary motivation...ie a big pile of cash) will simply find a way around.

This type of crime is not new and does occur elsewhere but as usual in Ireland we are so different to everyone else :rolleyes: we refuse to learn from the mistakes of others so now we're learning the lesson all on our own.

It's funny, there's an ad on the radio at the moment (for eircom phonewatch....and that's another story...) that points out how silly it would be to leave your bag in the middle of O'Connell Street because it would be stolen, but the banks are happily sticking great big boxes full of money in brick walls on the sides of streets all over the country and everyone's surprised that people come along with JCBs and try to take them away....!

Yes we need ATMs for convenience but their location has to be "designed" with a little more cop on than is currently being applied. In some reports of stolen ATMs no-one even knows how the thieves did what they did, the owner of the filling station or whatever just turns up in the morning and finds a big pile of rubble.

For everyone's benefit an ATM needs:

- a properly selected location
- additional site works to prevent ram raid attacks and restrict access for heavy machinery (and no, a little bollard will not do the trick)
- a proper alarm system will dual communications (land line and GSM)
- seismic sensors in the ATM (they're often in there already but not connected up, or the alarm system doesn't have GSM so the thieves just cut the phone lines before attacking)
- proper standby power so the alarm and the video cameras still work if the power is cut
- video surveillance with recording (preferably with data integration from the ATM and preferably with a broadband connection so video can be retrieved live at the alarm monitoring centre in the event of an alarm)

etc etc....no point in me spouting on here about this if you aren't in charge of purchasing for one of the major irish banks as I'd just be wearing down my fingers for nothing.

They're making far too much money to worry about a bit of ATM fraud and the occassional missing machine, and if they shut the machines out of hours they won't even have to worry about the machines. So everyone's happy.....the customer's not happy? Sorry? The who?

ChipZilla

What an overreaction. How difficult would it be to connect a tilt switch to an exploding dye pack in the ATM so the money would be rendered useless if the ATM was moved?

All that's going to happen now is that ATMs on non-bank sites are going to be hit more...

Mr E

Is this just a dublin thing? I used a couple of BOI ATMs over the weekend without any trouble....

jrd

Lads I think you are all getting carried away. I suspect taking the money out is a temporary move to get permanent workarounds in place. I'd also guess BOI are no different to the others but may have more machines. Think there's need to be preventative stuff done not reactive (video, alarms) etc. All those shop machines have worked well for BOI - are plentiful, providing alternatives and I've had no issues with them ?

jolly

petek

so now we're all gonna have to walk around with all the cash we might need on us? so we can get mugged? or lose our wallet? and then not be able to get home or call a friend cuz we can't get any more money till atms open again? great!

and by evenings do they mean the hours banks are actually open? cuz thats only like 3 hours a day or something ridiculous.

and as well, i spent a lot of time after moving house last year trying to get BOI to stop sending my statements to my old address, they said i had to write to the manager, so i did, stating the new address, and that i wanted bimonthly statements, and then the statements came to the address, but with no name on them. causing them to be opened by anyone in the house. and theres no regular space of time between statements. what kind of stupid run bank sends statements without the account holders name on??

i think i'll change my account to AIB. :mad:

daggeredge

I went to a spar in the city the other night 4 cash for a taxi round oneish from a BOI atm and found it was outta service!! IMO - turned off, this was Sat. night so I dunno was the BOI closing atms then... very inconvenient though as I had to get a loan of money off my cousin and felt really cheap after!
I could see though how the spar would be a target as it is in the shop and town isn't exactly the safest place in the world on a saturday night...
still though they lost my business that night... have a backup BOI a/c think I'll cancel it and stick with Ulster Bank!

Third_Echelon

daggeredge wrote:

I went to a spar in the city the other night 4 cash for a taxi round oneish from a BOI atm and found it was outta service!! IMO - turned off, this was Sat. night so I dunno was the BOI closing atms then... very inconvenient though as I had to get a loan of money off my cousin and felt really cheap after!
I could see though how the spar would be a target as it is in the shop and town isn't exactly the safest place in the world on a saturday night...
still though they lost my business that night... have a backup BOI a/c think I'll cancel it and stick with Ulster Bank!

i think you'll find that most of those in-store atms in spars and centras etc are turned off after a certain time, usually around pub hours to stop queues of people coming into the store just for the atm. Those places dont like big crowds of people as its easier to camoflague someone robbing stuff etc...

I know that they turn off the instore atm in the dunnes stores supermarket on george st, which is very annoying if you happen to do your shopping after 8pm... you have to go to the one outside with the mile-long queue of pub-punters just to get cash...