Word: atm
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Franken is the author of several books, including Why Not Me?, a fictitious story of his successful presidential campaign and of his ensuing administration, during which his only goal was to eliminate ATM fees...
...Cubans are eager to buy from the U.S. To the extent Castro allows, they are trying out capitalism, creating new private businesses, from boarding houses to pizza-delivery services, primed by the annual $800 million that family members in the U.S. send them. Many even draw dollars from Havana ATM machines, via accounts set up by U.S. relatives in Canada and Europe. But for Cubans, entrepreneurship is fraught with migraines, from exorbitant government licenses and taxes to graft. And for those who have no access to dollars, despair--and resentment--is rising. At the same time, Cubans are worried that...
...more than a dozen communities, from Los Angeles to Miami, have begun to target ATM surcharges. The most threatening to banks is New York City, where city council speaker Peter Vallone plans to unveil a proposal next month that would restrict ATM fees in the nation's financial capital. In Congress, Representative Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent, has introduced federal anti-surcharge legislation. Even the Defense Department has joined the offensive: it wants to ban the fees from ATMs on military bases...
...surcharges are particularly galling to pols and consumer groups because they seem to amount to blatant double dipping. For example, a nondepositor who pays $1.50 for ATM cash often pays his own bank a $1-to-$2 fee for the same transaction. Such fees more than cover the cost of the transaction, which opponents put at 27[cents] per withdrawal. Says Santa Monica's Feinstein: "The banks say there is no free lunch for a service, when in fact they are asking us to pay twice for lunch...
Bankers justify the charges by noting that most banks provide ATMs free to their own customers and thus must find some other way to recover the cost of deploying the machines. "In San Francisco," says Bank of America spokesman Peter Magnani, "there is no charge 80% of the time when someone puts a card in a B. of A. machine." Moreover, he says, the cost of the transaction is just a small part of the bank's expenses, which include purchasing, installing and maintaining the machines as well as paying rent at nonbank locations. "Banks are being singled...