Peter,

Here in Chicago, there is no surcharge at the grocery store.  One can
buy groceries using his atm card and get $50 and sometimes more back.
One can also do this at the drugstorre.  As you suggest Peter, this can
be an easy, convenient, and accessible way to get cash without going to
your bank in person to get it, if you are not near a talking atm.  In
fact, these point of sale transactions are one of the biggest growth
areas of the atm industry and may outpace transaction volume in a few
years from atm machines themselves.

kelly

On Sat, 25 Nov 2000, Peter Seymour
wrote:

> Thanks for passing on this info about all the advantages of cash back at
> supermarkets. I have a supermarket far closer to my home than any A T M
> machine is, and the store is open from 7 am to midnight.
>
> Three other advantages of getting money this way are, 1. Although I can
> only get up to $50 cash back in addition to my purchase,  it doesn't have
> to be in increments of $20. 2. The cashier can tell me the denominations of
> the bills as she hands them to me. 3. I do some necessary shopping where I
> might have put it off.
>
> I knew that there was a surcharge for the service, but I didn't think it
> was or could be as little as 20 cents. I remember it being more than that,
> but knowing that some stores only charge 20 cents (probably as an incentive
> to shop there), I'll inquire about my store's policy, and perhaps ask for a
> discount if their surcharge is high. I'll keep this list informed as to my
> results.
>
> Peter Seymour
>
>
> At 11:36 AM 11/24/00 -0800, Gordan Wahl wrote:
> >ATM Machines are not yet ready for the blind.  For many years I have used my
> >ATM Card at most major chain retail markets and stores to get cash.  When
> >making a purchase at a major retail outlet, ask if they give "Cash Back"
> >when you use your ATM card.  Some stores have a $40.00 limit.  Most
> >Supermarket Grocery Stores will give you up to $100.00 in cash at time of
> >check-out.  My sur-charge is only twenty cents, far less than the $2.00 or
> >more charged at most ATM outlets.  Additionally, the transaction takes place
> >at the check-out register, a far safer place for a blind person than many
> >ATM locations.  It has been a get cash life saver, not only near my home,
> >bet in strange cities far from home.  Gordon Wahl
> >
> >Kelly Pierce wrote:
> >
> >> Voice-Guided Cash Machines for the Blind
> >>
> >> November 23, 2000
> >> WHAT'S NEXT
> >> By ANNE EISENBERG
> >>
> >> GETTING cash from an automated teller machine is a convenience that
> >> most people now take for granted. But not the blind.
> >>
> >>   Braille figures on keypads are useful for blind people when they
> >> are punching in a personal identification number. But Braille isn't
> >> much help after that, because the rest of the transactions are
> >> usually visual, driven by on-screen choices like Checking or
> >> Savings?
> >>
> >>   Now Diebold Inc., of Canton, Ohio, a major manufacturer of
> >> automated teller machines, has developed a prototype for an
> >> inexpensive machine guided entirely by audio prompts. The company
> >> was spurred in part by a lawsuit filed against Diebold and the
> >> Rite-Aid Corporation under the Americans With Disabilities Act
> >> charging that the machines that Diebold was installing in Rite-Aid
> >> stores used screen text prompts that were inaccessible to the
> >> blind.
> >>
> >>   The new automated teller machines, which will be manufactured by
> >> Diebold, are designed not for the posh world of $10,000-to- $30,000
> >> high-end machines typically set into the walls of banks, but for
> >> the world of $5,000-to-$8,000 plug-them-in A.T.M.'s springing up in
> >> retail spaces like drugstores and grocery stores throughout the
> >> country. Inexpensive enough to be bought by small businesses, the
> >> new machines will make bank transactions more accessible and
> >> convenient for the blind.
> >>
> >>   Within a year or so customers may plug headphones into an A.T.M.
> >> at the corner grocery store and be guided by synthesized speech
> >> asking politely, "How much cash do you want?"
> >>
> >>   Diebold will demonstrate a prototype of the new machine at a major
> >> trade show, the Bank Administration Institute conference on retail
> >> financial services next week in New Orleans.
> >>
> >>   Using voice to guide an A.T.M. is not a new idea. There are
> >> already a handful of high-end voice-guided cash machines scattered
> >> across the United States, many of them manufacturered by Diebold.
> >> But those machines, primarily found in banks, usually use sound
> >> cards with canned messages, typically recorded by actors, that are
> >> stored on the machine in the form of audio files. Any time the
> >> procedure changes, the script must be changed and rerecorded by the
> >> actors   an expensive procedure.
> >>
> >>   The new machines are not likely to produce the polished tones of
> >> an actor, but they will cost a lot less and be much more flexible.
> >> That is because the voices that will speak from the new machines
> >> will be generated not by professionals but by computer software
> >> that converts text into synthesized speech.
> >>
> >>   The synthesized speech is understandable, though unmistakably
> >> produced by a machine, not a person. When users plug their
> >> headphones into the jack in the modified A.T.M., the
> >> computer-driven text-to- speech technology will translate the given
> >> string of characters and read them aloud by way of the sound card.
> >>
> >>   Text-to-speech technology is already widely used, in voice
> >> recognition programs, for instance, that read back text like memos
> >> or letters that people have dictated to their computers. It is also
> >> being used in programs that read e-mail over the phone and in
> >> conversational interfaces being developed for Web sites.
> >>
> >>   "This is the first time a text-to-speech solution has been
> >> implemented on an A.T.M. at this price point," said Alan Looney,
> >> director of product planning and management at Diebold.
> >>
> >>   The new machine will have a customized processor and software. The
> >> software within the machine will manage what is said and when.
> >> Specialized circuitry and electronics will handle the
> >> text-to-speech conversion and drive the headphone jack, Mr. Looney
> >> said.
> >>
> >>   Diebold was moved to develop the new machines in part because of a
> >> lawsuit brought in May by the National Federation of the Blind and
> >> others in the United States District Court for the District of
> >> Columbia.
> >>
> >>   Daniel F. Goldstein, a lawyer for the federation, said that
> >> Diebold responded to the lawsuit in a way he found unique. "Instead
> >> of fighting or settling, as most groups do," Mr. Goldstein said,
> >> "Diebold went far beyond what we sought. They wanted to talk about
> >> an effective, inexpensive way to build better machines, not just to
> >> settle."
> >>
> >>   Diebold entered into a cooperation agreement to develop new
> >> technology and to market it so that A.T.M.'s with voice technology
> >> might become the default option in the country for retail machines,
> >> Mr. Goldstein said.
> >>
> >>   "Within nine months," he said recently, "we're to complete a
> >> design for an improved retail machine that has all the features the
> >> National Federation of the Blind wants."
> >>
> >>   Curtis Chong, director of technology at the federation, is among
> >> the people who will be examining Diebold's prototype to see if it
> >> is up to snuff. Mr. Chong is totally blind.
> >>
> >>   "We, the blind, are used to synthesized speech, so that is not
> >> going to be a problem," he said.
> >>
> >>   The National Federation of the Blind has a membership of 50,000.
> >> Mr. Chong estimated the number of blind people in the United States
> >> at 1.1 million. "Any blind person who is currently using a computer
> >> knows how easy it is to understand text-to-speech," he said.
> >>
> >>   Mr. Chong, like others involved in developing the new machines, is
> >> in favor of inexpensive headsets carried by each user, rather than
> >> machine-mounted telephone handsets, which are expensive and easily
> >> vandalized.
> >>
> >>   The new generation of machines in retail outlets, he said, will
> >> have to perform certain actions. First the machine should be able
> >> to give a physical tour, telling the user where its controls are
> >> and how to use them.
> >>
> >>   The tour, as well as any other procedures run on the machine, must
> >> be interruptible, he said, so that at any point the user can stop
> >> the spiel and get on with a particular transaction.
> >>
> >>   For the machines to be satisfactory, he said, every important step
> >> they take should be verbalized, from verification of the personal
> >> identification number to balance inquiries to receipts. The receipt
> >> is very important to Mr. Chong. "It provides that final bit of
> >> verification for users before they walk away," he said.
> >>
> >>   Mr. Chong currently uses two cash machines, neither of them
> >> voice-guided   one in his neighborhood grocery store and one at his
> >> bank   and through them he has learned how important verification
> >> can be.
> >>
> >>   "It's possible for a blind person with a good memory to use a
> >> familiar machine," he said, as long as the person has memorized the
> >> sequence of buttons to push and there are no changes in the screens
> >> that cause the transaction to go awry.
> >>
> >>   "I stick in my card, wait about three seconds, enter my pin and
> >> then quick punch the A key three times," he said, describing the
> >> process first to enter the pin, then to indicate he wants to
> >> withdraw money from his checking account. "Then I punch in an
> >> amount I know is divisible by $20, and then `yes' to accept the
> >> transaction."
> >>
> >>   If all goes well, he gets his money. But if the bank has made
> >> changes to the screen and Mr. Chong doesn't know that, he ends up
> >> having to flag down someone to help him. "But I will never tell a
> >> sighted person my PIN number," he said. "The one thing the Braille
> >> helps me with is to punch in my PIN."
> >>
> >>   Mr. Chong is looking forward to the time when he will be able to
> >> use a machine at a bank, a convenience store or even a drive-up
> >> window without relying on his memory or the kindness of strangers.
> >>
> >>   "We are going to work toward text-to- speech in the next
> >> generation of A.T.M.'s so that we have voice guidance in all stages
> >> of the transaction," he said. "So on a bad day, when I stick in my
> >> credit card by mistake, the machine will let me know."
> >>
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VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html