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TIL a lot of American ATMs have withdrawal fees. Man is nothing free over there?
this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2026
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Water's free, mostly. McDonald's started charging 25 cents for it, I have no idea why. Most cities and parks have free public restrooms. Gas stations and convenience stores also let you go in without buying anything, but only sometimes, so it hardly counts. Not the best maintained, but it is what it is. You get a free lawyer if you get charged with a crime, if the government's following the law (it doesn't do that a lot of the time, shhhhhh). The stuff that people leave by the curb is free, you can kinda just take it. I'm struggling to think of any more, I'm ngl. Sure there's a few others. I do think that water should be free for everyone, everywhere. Besides that, nothing too crazy, certainly nothing on the same level as healthcare.
Bathrooms are usually free. So there's something at least.
Nothing is free really.
The only withdrawal fees i've seen are at ATMs not provided by your bank or not in your bank's network.
If I go into a convenience store, it's gonna be $2-$4 fee for the ATM. It's the only reason why they have ATMs.
Capital one is in network with a lot of those store and gas station ATMs (allpoint and moneypass)
So do European ATMs? I assume it works the same way - if the ATM is "in network" it's free. Otherwise there's a charge.
These days you can get checking accounts which refund ATM fees, but they are usually the higher end ones which have deposit minimums.
Except I have never paid a fee for using the atm in my life, no matter which bank the atm was located at. Maybe some features like depositing are only possible in your own bank's atm
In the UK the vast majority of ATMs don’t charge, no matter which bank you use. The only ones I’ve seen charge are ones in clubs/pubs where I imagine the thinking is if you need cash for a taxi and you are a captive audience. However I have never seen anyone use one of those.
Those deposit minimums tend to be like 50 bucks.
Dealing with atm fees is an extremely rare or financially illiterate problem.
Then again I keep meet people though out my life that can't seem to afford to have 50 dollars once a month deposited into a bank account. While actively making 600+ a week.
Same in Canada! Free to use any ATM of your bank, 3 or 4 CAD fee when using anothers bank ATM.
In India it's 5 free transactions from same bank ATM, and 3 free transactions from different bank ATM. After that there's a fee. I think that's reasonable
Same for banks in Slovakia, but you typically have monthly packages that will include unlimited withdrawals. Say, €7/month.
But it's all over the place.
Mine also has one but mainly because most ATMs are from the "sparkassen" and the one i use has relativly rare "raiffeisen" ATMs
Its a bit like two systemsthat do the same
The little town in Oö where I recently lived for a year had one of each, and when I eventually realised that Sparkasse had no fees I never went in a Raiffeisen again.
Thats good to know. Have to look that up/test that out again :)
Also a thing in Norway. Nobody here uses cash anymore though.
America is Ferenginar.
Hold on. ATMs in the US have fees?
Many. Not all. A lot of non-bank ATMs and out of network bank ATMs have fees. And some banks will "refund" any fees from any ATM. It's actually a little complicated.
They’re called ATMs because you’re expected to eat shit after they fuck you.
Clerks 2 represented that as acceptable behavior.
Absolutely not into kink shaming, but non-coerced consent is key, and a foundation of finance is coercion.
In the movie, the main character, his love interest and an unassociated but still primary character declare that ATM is not okay.
Later in the movie, the tertiary character I mentioned is not present and the other two are flirting heavily. The female love interest says "in the heat of the moment, sometimes ATM is okay." (I might be paraphrasing, it's been a lot of years since I saw movie, but the sentiment is correct.) The other character then shows up and shames her.
Consent is hugely important. Even stuff like CNC very heavily depends on consent - and should. However, in the movie, I don't think it's a concept being challenged.
However, in case anything I've said implies otherwise ... No means no and begging until you get a yes is not a yes.
Fuck an ATM fee. I keep some money in a Federal Credit Union, then I just look for FCU ATMs which allow you to withdraw without fees, regardless of which bank owns the ATM. FCU density seems regional though so this likely doesn't work a lot of places, YMMV
Look up credit unions near you part of the co op network. Basically you can use any atms on that network as long as yours participates.
Thanks for saying it better than I did; it probably doesn't matter if they're an FCU as long as they're in the co-op network, it's just that every co-op bank/atm I've found has been an FCU
I once dated a girl who was with a bank that paid you back any fees incurred at any ATM.
I don't really remember the details, but I think that bank was super local or had restricted membership or something like that. Still an impressive offer, though.
There are a small number of banks that do this. One off the top of my head is Schwab's checking account.
Basically every bank in America pays back your ATM fees if you meet a very easy requirement. Like having 50 dollars deposited into it once a month. Or having a savings account. That deposits 50 bucks into it once a month.
The money typically doesn't even need to stay there past the base 50 bucks.
I agree, I considered some local bank with restricted membership, but I run into the issue that I travel A LOT so I'm not likely to be near that bank.