In the on-going situation at the University Place branch of BECU, the credit union PR people defend procedures of the CU. As of the time of this post, the ATM remains OUT OF OPERATION (not a 3-hour outage of yesterday, as claimed in the PR response here, but a continuing issue which prevents transactions at the CU this evening)

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.  We work hard to ensure that our members are happy with the level of service they are receiving and if they are not we certainly want to hear about it.

In regards to the blog, I would like to take a moment to clarify a few areas and give you additional insight.

The Human Element:
It is correct that our Neighborhood Financial Centers do not have
traditional “tellers” rather, we rely on the ATM to complete the same
functions as a traditional teller would (make deposits, dispense cash,
etc.).  We do however, have members services staff to assist our
members, and our objective is to provide a human element that is
superior to a traditional “teller”.  By not carrying cash at our centers
we eliminate a significant financial burden that allows us to return
more to our members in the form of our rates and by not charging fees
that are customary in most financial institutions.  In addition, as our
tellers are not busy counting the cash, we are able to spend more time
with our members to really help them find ways that they can improve
their financial lives or make things a little easier.  While the ATM is
our means to take deposits and dispense cash, our staff are always
available and eager to help.

Access to deposits:
The new ATM’s that we are deploying such as the ATM at University Place
are what we term “Imaging ATM’s”.  These ATM count the cash as it is
deposited and for checks, print a copy of the check on the receipt.
Cash that is deposited is made available immediately and not subject to
any holds.  For checks, depending on where the check is drawn, it can
take 3-5 business days to clear. 

As far as accessing cash, it is true that we do have limits on what can
be automatically withdrawn on a daily basis, however, during business
hours our member services representatives can work with our members to
provide temporary increases to meet their needs for a specific
transaction.  For example, in the scenario that you describe, if you
deposit $2,000 in cash, our member solutions team can grant temporary
access to the entire amount.  By limiting the automatic availability we
are able to limit the exposure to un-authorized use.  Dollars that we
loose to fraud are dollars that we cannot give back to our members.

ATM Availability:
In the scenario you mention, our ATM was malfunctioning for
approximately 3 hours and would not take deposits and for that we
sincerely apologize.  The performance our of ATM’s is something that we
constantly monitor. In the case of the University Place ATM, we will
monitor it’s performance and take the appropriate action to ensure our
service levels meet our members expectations.  While it is not an
excuse, we do have three other deposit taking ATM’s in the area.

Thanks again for passing this on.  We welcome all feedback and we will
continue to work hard to earn and keep our members trust and loyalty.

Sincerely,

Todd Pietzsch
BECU

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