[nfbwatlk] Fw: Bank of America's ATMs

[kris Lawrence]

Hey there,

Meant to say something about this before Christmas but it got lost in 
the Holiday shuffle.

The B of A on Pike & 4th has three ATM's with headphone jacks. I tried 
all three ATM's. On two of them I got the welcome message, but nothing 
else. I tried pushing a few muttons as I am not overly familiar with the 
system and ended up canceling the transactions completely. The third ATM 
had no speech at all. Finally, a bank manager came out because someone 
had seen me trying to work the machines. I explained that their ATM's 
apparently were not working correctly and so, she ended up helping me. I 
kept the headphones plugged in the entire time. I received the welcome 
message and it wasn't until the end that I received another message 
saying "Thank You...". She seemed to take note of it and said that she 
really didn't even know who to talk to about the problem, but would try. 
So if anyone else out there works or visits downtown Seattle and uses 
the B of A on 4th and Pike, see if they have made any changes, would ya? 
Thanks!

Kris Lawrence

Mike Freeman wrote:
> If anyone uses Bank of America, have they noticed the problem described below? Bank of America worked with us at one time to get accessible ATM's and if the description below is true, it (the bank) is slipping mightily and BofA might need a bit of reminding and splaining from Dr. Maurer.
>  
> Mike
>  
> ----- Original Message -----
> From:
> mailto:farwaneh at email.arizona.edu S Farwaneh
> To:
> mailto:gui-talk at nfbnet.org NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
> Sent:
> Friday, January 04, 2008 8:03 PM
> Subject:
> [gui-talk] Bank of America's ATMs
>   
>> 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
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