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Link says U.K. users pay attention to on-screen ATM-fee warnings

July 6, 2006

NORTH YORKSHIRE, England - The United Kingdom's Link Interchange Network Ltd. found in an April survey that on-screen ATM warnings about fees seem to be the most attention-grabbing.

According to the study, on-screen ATM warnings were four times more likely than any other Link-mandated warning to catch a user's attention. But between one-in-six and one-in-seven users could not remember any warning even popping on the screen after confirming acceptance of a charge.

Labels warning consumers of fees that are posted on an ATM's enclosure garner the least attention, the study found.

"One lesson from this survey is that people are much more likely to read the up-front warnings on the screen than to notice stickers on the outside of the machine," Link ATM Scheme director Edwin Latter said. "Link should look at clearer and larger standardized warnings on the screen, rather than concentrating on more external stickers. Link has also learned from our policing and enforcing work that stickers are easily vandalized."

The survey also showed that regardless of the number of signs, most people do not notice or aren't interested in the warnings.

C-stores and gas stations

While the majority of people surveyed remembered the upfront warning, in some quick-stop locations such as petrol/gas stations, more than 50 percent didn't remember the warning. That was particularly true for men, while women demonstrated they had read the instructions more carefully.

Ninety-eight percent of the study's respondents said they use fee-charging machines for convenience and quick access to cash.

Mike Greene, chief executive of HIM, the company that conducted the survey, said the results aren't that unusual.

"Most people cannot remember the price paid in a retail transaction, even a few seconds after the purchase," he said. "People are busy, and convenience and speed can be more important than price."

ATMs are crucial to the survival of local convenience stores, according to other HIM research. ATM users visit c-stores with ATMs 18 percent more often than other customers and they spend about 11 percent more while they're there.

About half of the users surveyed knew that the fees they pay go to machine and c-store operators. More than a third, however, wrongly thought the fees go to the sponsoring bank.

Other information:

• Most users knew that all bank ATMs in the U.K. are free, while between 3 percent and 4 percent thought some bank machines charge a fee.
• More than half of the people who use charging machines visit an ATM more than three times a week. Only 12 percent of those respondents use a certain machine once a week, suggesting they had a choice when it came to which cash machine to use. Thirteen percent of those who said they used charging machines said they prefer using free, bank machines.
• Twenty-one percent of people using charging machines said they needed to get cash urgently, compared to only 10 percent of regular free-machine users.

The survey represents the next step in Link's work to achieve complete disclosure of ATM charges. In July 2005, Link members agreed to place at least three warnings of fees on all charging machines. In late 2005 and early 2006, Link conducted independent surveys of compliance with those rules.

Now Link expects to use the consumer survey's results to determine how its rules may be further developed.

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