I noted a small sign on the teller machine at my bank. It said that it now accepted deposits. This was not remarkable. I was able to make deposits with my Marianne Card way back in 1983. Back in ’83 the pocess was simple. I would fill out a deposit slip, endorse my check, and put the whole mess in a special envelope. Then I would tell the ATM the amount of my deposit. The ATM would accept my envelope and print something on it. I assume that it was my account number and the amount I claimed. The deposit would show as a pending transaction until a human opened the envelope and confirmed what I had said on the deposit slip matched. It was a glorified night deposit box.
Twenty five years later I thought nothing had changed. I was wrong. First off, no special envelope was needed. You can feed up to 30 checks at a time. Each check is scanned. The ATM shows the check on the screen and asks you to confirm the amount which it has already read correctly. Once all the checks are loaded the reciept is printed with an image of each check. This is very cool.
Naturally this is all the result of the Check 21 regulations that were put into effect after 9/11. However it came into being it is a great benefit for customers.
The ATM shows the check on the screen and asks you to confirm the amount which it has already read correctly. Once all the checks are loaded the reciept is printed with an image of each check. This is very cool.
Ever since Chase installed the new ATM’s, I cannot use them. For some reason they will not accept my paychecks. I have asked Chase for help and it has fallen on deaf ears. I want to know the specifications for the machine to accept a check. Being we do our own in-house payroll, I probably could make the changes required, ONLY if I’m told what they are.
I’ve had a couple of checks shop up as unreadable. They were computer-generated checks. It does not seem to have a problem with hand-written checks usually. The corporate checks are usually laced with anti-copy features which make the check unreadable by the ATM scanners. You can see this if you stick one of these checks into a photocopier or scanner. In these cases the ATM should ask you for the amount. The checks should have a magnetic ink numbers at the bottom so that the ATM knows that its a check and not a piece of paper.
I had to go into the bank last month and I made a comment about how I liked the ATM machines for deposits, the teller rolled her eyes and told me that they get a lot of complaints about those machines.
It’s new technology that seems to be getting better. I’ve notices that the screens have changed twice over the last couple of months. Now your deposited checks do not appear on the screen unless you ask for that. That is a security improvement. It shows that they are still working on this.