Banks are kind of shitty here - if you use another bank’s ATM, your bank (or the other, or sometimes both) will charge a small fee. Usually it’s something like $3, but some smaller banks and credit unions will actually pay all of those fees back, so a lot of folks don’t even notice that it’s there.
This specific situation is weird because it’s a dispensary, though. Thanks to the vagaries of local legality and federal illegality, the dispensaries are totally good selling drugs, but the banks are very much not good openly handling the payments for those drugs. Because of this, most dispensaries will contract their debit payments through a payment processor that can register their card readers as “cashless ATMs,” and who will effectively launder all of their debit transactions. The end result of this is that while the customer can pay with a card like a normal store, they end up having to choose between paying the ATM fee at the ATM, or at the register.
The situation makes sense from the pov of the banks. They get to charge you more and get that money instantly for the same transaction.
How it should be: most customers use cash, sometimes they use a card and the dispensary sends a small amount of money (at the end of the month) to the bank for being involved in the process.
How it is: everyone uses an ATM as individuals and get charged a huge non-negotiable fee for that and the banks make money the moment you withdrawal any.
Always look at who gains from a situation to understand the situation.
Banks are kind of shitty here - if you use another bank’s ATM, your bank (or the other, or sometimes both) will charge a small fee. Usually it’s something like $3, but some smaller banks and credit unions will actually pay all of those fees back, so a lot of folks don’t even notice that it’s there.
This specific situation is weird because it’s a dispensary, though. Thanks to the vagaries of local legality and federal illegality, the dispensaries are totally good selling drugs, but the banks are very much not good openly handling the payments for those drugs. Because of this, most dispensaries will contract their debit payments through a payment processor that can register their card readers as “cashless ATMs,” and who will effectively launder all of their debit transactions. The end result of this is that while the customer can pay with a card like a normal store, they end up having to choose between paying the ATM fee at the ATM, or at the register.
The situation makes sense from the pov of the banks. They get to charge you more and get that money instantly for the same transaction.
How it should be: most customers use cash, sometimes they use a card and the dispensary sends a small amount of money (at the end of the month) to the bank for being involved in the process.
How it is: everyone uses an ATM as individuals and get charged a huge non-negotiable fee for that and the banks make money the moment you withdrawal any.
Always look at who gains from a situation to understand the situation.