August 2008 Articles

It's 4:00 a.m. Do You Know Where a Free ATM is?

By Gloria Wadzinski

Have you seen the bank commercial advertising an ATM on every corner? You might conclude that big banks offer the most ATM locations, but in fact, Elevations Credit Union has more ATMs than Wells Fargo and Chase put together.*

As part of the CO-OP ATM Network, Elevations has over 28,000 ATMs. Elevations owns 26 of them. The rest are owned by other credit unions and companies who welcome Elevations members.

You can travel across the country, even to Alaska and Hawaii, and find hundreds of convenient ATMs along your route. We even have ATMs in other countries such as Spain and Italy. And absolutely none of these ATMs will surcharge when you use your Elevations Check Card.

Does “No Surcharge” Mean Free?

Here’s the short answer: ATMs are totally free if you are using a CO-OP ATM in the U.S. and you use them 8 times a month or less (or an unlimited number of times if you have eStyle Checking).

The long answer is that surcharges are only one type of ATM fee. To define “free ATM” you have to talk about surcharges, usage fees, and international service assessments.

Surcharges are easy to spot. You agree to pay a surcharge while standing at the ATM. CO-OP ATMs won’t surcharge Elevations members, so you won’t even see a surcharge message on the ATM screen.

Usage fees (sometimes called withdrawal fees or foreign ATM fees) are not as obvious. When you use an ATM that is not owned by Elevations, the ATM owner charges Elevations a fee. Then, depending on how many times you’ve used an ATM during the month and what type of checking account you have, Elevations either pays this fee for you or debits $1.50 to your checking account.

International Service Assessment (ISA) fees are charged when you use your Visa Check Card or Visa Credit Card outside of the U.S. including ATM transactions. The 1% fee is charged by Visa, not Elevations.

Why does all of this sound so complicated? Back in the 1970s things were much simpler. There was only one kind of ATM fee and everyone paid it. But back then you could only use your bank’s ATM. Today it’s a global ATM world, and with so many service options it makes sense to charge different fees to different types of users. Rest assured that if you’re an Elevations member, you’re getting the best deal at a CO-OP ATM.

Your Credit Union Continues to be the Best Value

In the last four years, big banks have doubled surcharges, increased usage fees and even piggy-backed fees onto the Visa ISA fee. At Elevations, free ATMs are not a limited-time promotion. You benefit from more free services at more ATMs without a “catch.” It’s one of the reasons Why We Are Best.