WaMu, you advertise "free ATM use", and it is free - if I use your ATMs - but that's the case with any bank. Why on earth do you charge me $2 per transaction to use someone else's ATM on top of the fee the other bank is charging me?

This is disappointing, but most banks do charge you for using another ATM. Even my nice credit union charges for using another bank's ATM (although it is free if you use an ATM from another credit union, they are all partnered or something). Citibank would be the only place I've heard of that does not slap this charge on people.

Basically, I'm not surprised that they do this, but I agree that they shouldn't advertise "Free ATM cash withdrawals worldwide" because I, too, thought this meant "We won't charge you".

Hmmm.... I do get a charge when I use another bank's ATM or an independent ATM - but I always thought that charge was coming from them. Perhaps Citibank gets a cut of it? I don't see any separate ATM withdrawal charges from Citibank showing up in my online register.

Everyone has to pay the fee charged by the ATM owner and that goes to the owner ("their" bank, whatever name is on the machine). Many banks (Citibank is apparently an exception) for some reason see this as an opportunity to charge an additional fee to their customer that they pile on top of the amount charged by the ATM itself. This additional amount is completely unnecessary and goes to your bank.

In other words, most of us pay both the ATM operator and our own bank for the "convenience" of being able to use the machine to access our account. My credit union charges $1.50 and WaMu charges $2 in addition to any fees charged by the owner of the ATM (so the total fee for using the "wrong" ATM is usually around $3 - $5).

Here's an example of how it appears on my bank statement. I paid $1.50 to my credit union and $1.75 to the ATM operator (I withdrew $60 and the additional $1.75 is a fee charged by the ATM), so the total fee for using the ATM was $3.25:

And does that additional fee show up clearly in your statement or is it hidden?

I guess this would be one reason to stay with Citibank. That's pretty annoying that your own bank would charge you for using another ATM.

Yeah it's pretty crappy, but many (probably most) banks do this so they can pretty much get away with it. Good job Citibank for not doing this. :-) There is no Citbank anywhere in my state, but otherwise I might look into them.

I believe that that was once the case, but Wamu has since begun charging for using other banks' ATMs.

on my statement, it shows up as a monthly fee. so, if i did 4 transactions on other atms, i'll be billed $8 at the end of the month. however, i recently opened a new account and closed the old one and now i'm not seeing that charge even though i've been using other atms. maybe it the kind of account that i had? or, will they catch up to me and bill me $1MM in 10 years? heh.

Yeah, really. And with interest added.

Guys, go with Imperial Capital Bank (I'll have to add them here later, I guess). They're a tiny bank with only a few branches in SoCal (Bevery Hills and La Jolla) but they have excellent internet support. Anyway, they don't have ANY ATMs of their own. So they let me use whatever ATM and then reverse the usage fee! It's so awesome. I never have to worry about finding the "right" ATM. Oh, and they pay out like 4.5% on checking accounts (but your balance has to be over $1k to get that).

(I don't work for them in any way. I've just been through a lot of banks and I'm so glad to finally find a good one. Oh, did I mention that when I call them a (intelligent) human being actually picks up the phone?! It's like, amazing!)

Thanks for the tip. Sounds a lot like First Republic, actually. Not a lot of locations, but excellent customer service and I believe they also reverse ATM charges.

Wow, this is quite deceptive.

Banks are on a collision course with abject crappiness.