[gui-talk] Bank of America's ATMs

[S Farwaneh]

>Speaking of accessibility, I had an interesting experience with Bank 
>of America and I'm interested to know if others encountered the same 
>experience. As you know, BoA was  the first to install talking ATMs; 
>a few months ago, they replaced some or perhaps all their ATMs in 
>Arizona with a new model; it claims to be a talking machine yet when 
>you insert your headphone nothing happens. I spoke with several 
>managers who had no clue what the reason was until today. I was told 
>that due to sighted customers' complaints about the constant speech, 
>they turned off the speech and require that those who need it to 
>register their account as "hard of hearing" in order for their cards 
>to be identified by the machine and the speech to be activated. I 
>asked why The confusion between blind and hard of hearing but the 
>manager did not know. He also claims that these machines are being 
>used at all BoA locations nation-wide. So I would like to know if 
>other BoA customers outside Arizona have similar encounters. are you 
>still able to use their talking ATMs without this hassle? what kind 
>of action would you advise at this point? I am thinking of moving my 
>account to another bank, but since BoA used to be accessible, what 
>can we do to stop banks from regressing to inaccessibility?

Thanks for your input which I welcome either privately or to the list.

Samira



Samira Farwaneh
Assistant Professor, Arabic Language and Linguistics
Department of Near Eastern Studies
Department of Linguistics
Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Program

Louise Foucar Marshall Building
845 N Park Avenue, Room 440;  PO BOX 210158B
University of Arizona;  Tucson, Arizona  85721-0158B

Phone: (520) 621-8629 Or 621-8012
Fax: (520) 621-2333