19 December 2006
Consumers are at risk of spending £16.43 million just for withdrawing their own money if they don't watch out for charging ATM machines, according to research from Sainsbury's Bank.
The supermarket-based credit card company, which is one of several corporations to only install fee-free ATMs, estimates that 10.4 million cash machine withdrawals made in December will incur charges.
In addition, the number of surcharging ATMs has increased by 188% between June 2002 and June 2006 and these machines now account for around 44% of the nation's cash points.
Sainsbury's Bank's analysts also found that 96% of Britain's cash withdrawals are made from fee-free ATMs, but they are still concerned about the consumers who are making up the remaining 4% of chargeable transactions.
Alex Blake, head of ATMs at Sainsbury's Bank, said that despite all charging ATMs carrying a warning sticker on them, many shoppers are still missing the labels and are paying out extra cash unnecessarily.
"With so many more surcharging cash machines around, we all need to pay greater attention before we start our ATM transactions this Christmas.
Mr Blake continued: "We are committed to not charging people for withdrawing their money from our machines and in the last 12 months we have increased our number of free-to-use ATMs by around 19%."
Sainsbury's Bank now has over 900 free-to-use machines located in and around its supermarkets, petrol forecourts and convenience stores, making it the largest credit card provider to do so in the country.