In The Netherlands the ATM first requires you to take your card before you receive the money. I’m glad they do, otherwise I might have forgotten it once too. Of course the drawback is, that if you want to do more than one transaction, you have to put the card in a second time.
My boyfriend is 1625 miles across an ocean right now. Very few of the people my age here are local, and everyone goes home for Christmas. The only people in town I know are my bosses (who will help me through anything, but lord am I embarrased to reveal my lack of responsibility to them) and a moneyless teenage anarchist who feeds herself with roadkill deer.
I never considered I’d walk off without my card on the one day that’d I’d be totally alone, without provisions and birth control pills, and about to be unable to leave a half acre lot for a week. Today was my big shopping and getting prepared day. I’ve been scared to death of locking myself out of the house, and left an extra pair of keys at work. But I never realized how dependent I am on my ATM card (the checks are non-local as a vestige of the college student dual city lifestyle) and how much I take the fact that I (usually) have a boyfriend to back me up in emergencies for granted. Consider it a lesson learned (although FWIW my inhertence is tied up in CDs right now AND none of it matters if I don’t have access to a bank for a week).
I know I left it in the ATM and walked away. I now remember pretty clearly getting my cash and going “Oh, how nice! I’ve got some pocket change. I’m going to go buy myself a cup of coffee.” and walking off. How could I have been so mindless!I’m thinking maybe using the “fast cash” feature threw me off somewhere. I’m sure someone found it as it was an extremely busy day, but if they had intentions of reporting it they would surely have given it to the police or downtown information office literally right next door.
Some poor member of my family is going to drive six hours round trip twice to pick me up and drop me off so that I can spend a few hours with my family on Christmas day- which is why I don’t want to ask anyone to come down right now. I’ve worked every holiday except labor day since last Christmas and I promised myself that I would see my family on Christmas no matter what. I’m not upset the Charlie Brown quality of this holiday season, but it will be a big bummer if I have to show up emptyhanded, without even a gift for my mom and some fudge to offer as my part of the gift exchange.
Have you thought about Metacom’s advice to cash a check at a check cashing place? You know, it might not work, but you have a choice of either trying or giving up altogether.
I have never seen a check cashing service ANYWHERE in the state of Vermont. There may be one somewhere, but I’ve never seen it.
They seem to be a big-city phenomenon (and, usually, the really-bad-part-of-town-big-city phenomenon), and our largest city only has 36,000 people.
This is the part that I question. You’re really working around the clock for 7 days?
(Yorkshire accent)
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t’ mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi’ his belt.
There are at least 2 check cashing locations in Santa Cruz.
Same shit, different package. So with all the money you DO have, you don’t keep an emergency $20 at home? You seriously need to log off and stop your freaking whining already. No one here is going to pity you your horrible life and your inability to “buy the one Christmas present I’m going to be able to buy this year- a book for my mother.”
Maybe you could get in line at the bookstore, count your change, then start singing:
“Sir, I want to buy this book for my Mama, please
It’s Christmas Eve and this book is just her style.
Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there’s not much time
You see she’s been sick for quite a while
And I know this book would make her smile
And I want her to be good and smart if Mama meets Jesus tonight”
(from the “Christmas Shoes” song
http://www.lyricsstyle.com/n/newsong/thechristmasshoes.html )
You know what? Your ridiculous posts with your hints about how fucking poor you are are just as manipulative and vomit worthy as that shitty song. Learn a new tune already- you’ve played this one out.
Following on from Tusculan’s point, I’ve never understood why ATMs in the US don’t use the method common over here - you can’t pick up your cash until you’ve withdrawn your card (no unhelpful jingoism intended).
Here too you get your card back first.
And if a machine eats your card you don’t get it back, it is cancelled anyway and has to be replaced.
As a former security manager I am horrified that cards the machine keeps are mailed to their owners. What a great incentive for thieves.
Last time I needed a new ATM card and had to wait for it to be delivered, the bank gave me a temporary card. It doesn’t have your name on it or anything, and can’t be used as a debit card, but you can still get cash out of any ATM with it.
Ask the bank if they do this.
The ATM’s I use, beep at you until you remove your card, and then coughs up the money.
I want to know more about the working 24 hours a day for the next seven days. What job makes someone work 24 hours a day, seven days in a row? The fake kind, or the “pity me” kind?
I did this once, had to get a replacement card. Arrrgh!
I don’t know why you couldn’t get one month’s supply of pills. I’ve had to do that on more than one occasion when I was really short on cash; I prefer to have a couple ahead on hand, but sometimes that just doesn’t work out.
Do you have a credit card? You can get a cash advance at an ATM machine. For the future, you should probably keep $100 or so at home so you don’t have to rely on other people, or have no one to rely on, when something like this happens.
Could this possibly be some kind of exaggeration? If not, I recommend calling the California Department of Labor immediately.
We can all relate to leaving the card in the ATM. Heck, the ATM once swallowed the money I was withdrawing because I didn’t take it out fast enough.
Your problem is that you take every opportunity to whine about how poor you are. Instead of being a rant about leaving your card in the ATM, it becomes one more opportunity for you to remind everyone how pitiful you are (not being able to get birth control, not buying a book for your mom, and not having groceries). Sheesh! Give it a rest already!
But surely old Mr Scrooge will give you some more time off and a pitance for a little bit of Christmas cheer with the family and tiny Tim, Og bless him!
What is it with Americans doing stuff backwards? If they’re not paying to gas up their vehicles before it’s finished pumping, they’re removing money from ATMs before their card. It’s madness I tell you!
Jesus, did I miss something? BiblioCat, gobear? Clue me in?
Actually, it’s $20,000. But who’s counting?
yes, woe is her, that she can buy but one Christmas present…here we go again.