cross-posted from: https://fedia.io/m/privacy/t/346211
I need to check the balance of my bank card. It’s apparently becoming quite rare for ATMs to support balance inquiries. So as I try many different ATMs to check the balance, some ATMs demand PIN entry before you even see the service offers. So I enter my PIN and then it only gives a cash withdrawal option, at which point I eject.
Couple problems here:
anti-fraud AI sensors can be very fragile & trigger happy. If my card is inserted into several different ATMs with & no transaction is initiated, I am of course concerned that my account will be frozen due to fraud false positive.
some ATMs automatically print out your balance on the receipt if you ask for a receipt. Some show it on the screen Some ATMs will only print the balance on the receipt if you specifically requested the balance in your session. Some ATMs are completely incapable of balance inquiries (at least for cards from other banks). Consumers seem to have no way of knowing what kind of ATM they are dealing with in advance, which forces us to experiment.
Questions:
when an ATM demands PIN in advance, does that mean the transaction will signal the bank even if the session is terminated when the menu shows no balance inquiry option? IIUC, the PIN can be verified using the cards EMV chip without using the network - but is that necessarily the case?
when an ATM shows the menu options before asking for a PIN, can we count on no signal being sent to the bank?
One of my accounts got frozen for fraud. I called the bank, complained, demanded answers. The bankers themselves are kept in the dark and left guessing about what happened. One banker said “you asked for more than the daily limit 2 or 3 times, which failed, then you went to a different ATM and tried again. Since you went to a different machine, that likely looked like fraud”. (of course I tried a different machine – why would a legit user keep trying the same machine?)
That all sounds god awful. You may consider giving Ally bank a try. No US banks can be truly private post patriot act, but their website is full featured and they essentially never charge fees. They also have crazy high interest checking rates, and decent customer service.
If you stick with your current horse corpse dumpster fire bank, I question the merit of avoiding downloading their mobile app and instead sticking your card into lots of random unverified ATMs to try to get balance reports. At least here in Montana, those reports will often incur a charge even if you don’t withdraw money. The app may not be great, but SSL is cryptographically sound and the bank has your social and your identity anyway. Sometimes it’s more secure to dance with the devil you know. Just a thought.
Either way, best of luck
You may consider giving Ally bank a try.
My dumpster fire bank is not the US. But I would avoid Ally anyway since that bank’s website is tor-hostile and their privacy policy also scores below average on privacy. I suppose the low fees and high interest must be offset by data monetization.
I question the merit of avoiding downloading their mobile app and instead sticking your card into lots of random unverified ATMs to try to get balance reports.
Third party ATMs do not appear to exist in my region. All ATMs are bank-owned AFAICT.
The app may not be great, but SSL is cryptographically sound and the bank has your social and your identity anyway.
The app requires trusting whoever the bank outsourced the coding to. Does the bank even get to see the source code? I wouldn’t trust the bank or the profit-driven closed-source developers to not include spyware or to look after the consumer’s interests. Especially in the case of US banks. Apart from that I object to Google keeping track of where I bank (data which can ultimately be sold to debt collectors) – which is inherent in being forced to use the Play Store. I also object to buying a new phone (hardware) in order to chase the version requirements. These abuses are certain, thus a non-starter compared to the mere bad luck chance of fraud by a dodgy ATM which at least have the remedy of consumer legal protections.
You don’t trust the bank’s app because of who they might have outsourced the code to, but you will trust that the ATMs haven’t been tampered with by criminals? Because the latter is by far more common than the exploitation of a security hole in a banking app.
You don’t trust the bank’s app because of who they might have outsourced the code to
You can safely scratch out the word “might”. It’s very unlikely that a bank would write their own app in-house.
I don’t trust the outsourced entity, nor do I trust the bank. Banks use the cover of “KYC” to collect abusive amounts of information. Closed-source projects need to profit too & banks would be happy to reduce their cost by allowing 3rd party data collection. Most banking apps are outright tagged that they call for perms to collect your GPS location. I also don’t trust Google not to profit from information about where Google pawns do their banking – that’s too valuable to debt collectors to let it go unexploited.
but you will trust that the ATMs haven’t been tampered with by criminals?
I trust consumer protections to be enforced. I’ve made use of those protections in an ID theft situation so I’ve seen 1st hand that they work. If you fear ATMs then you cannot easily fight the #warOnCash. Do you get your cash over the counter, or do you simply support the war on cash and all the data leeches banks feed? If you’re quite worried about it, I suggest using the indoor ATM at a bank that’s only accessible during business hours.
You get no consumer protection from bank snooping that you agreed to in the ToS. You should read your bank’s ToS and privacy policy sometime. It’s interesting to see what they needlessly collect.
Because the latter is by far more common than the exploitation of a security hole in a banking app.
An outsider exploit is not the biggest threat. It’s the bank itself snooping lawfully (and monetizing that data to keep your fees down) that’s the most certain compromise. Though exploits cannot be ruled out either since closed-source blocks users from auditing the security.
