I tried to withdraw some cash from an ATM in America recently, but failed on a few different counts. First off I think I was trying to withdraw more than my limit (£250?). Secondly I then learned I had to enable magstripe usage or something? But even after doing both of these, I still couldn’t withdraw money.
It’s giving me the option to withdraw from savings, checking or credit… Does anyone know which of these you are supposed to enter? And what if it asks for a ZIP Code or something like that?
Thinking back to the olden days, I’m sure your bank used to give you a zip code to use if you told them you were travelling to America. No idea if any still work that way.
Some ATMs are localised better now and can accept U.K. postal codes. If they’re not, I believe it’s the same old trick as elsewhere, you take just the numbers, enter them in the order they appear in your postcode and then end with a string of zeroes.
So if you live at 5 Appold Street, London, for example, you’d enter 22000.
But I don’t know how much of that was just a folk tale, and that I really doesn’t matter what you enter. It’s been a really long time since I’ve used an ATM that’s asked for a ZIP code though. The age old 00000 trick is much the same too, I think.
It would be really nice if banks just told us what to enter. Just like you mentioned above with banks previously giving you a zip to enter.
At the moment (and I’m speaking from experience here) what happens is that you arrive at the machine, try to use it and it asks for a zip. You look at it puzzled. Maybe try one or two combinations and it fails. Then you Google it and end up on a forum post like this one. You try the suggestions above. It still fails. Your feed ends up looking like this:
Best advice at that point is probably to just find another ATM or get cashback. Or try a different debit card (the request for a zip code can sometimes be card specific).
I wonder if Mastercard send a reason code to Monzo when the transaction fails due to incorrect zip?
It would be really nice if a feed item + notification popped up telling you what to enter as your zip code.
Even if they don’t get the code, I’d imagine two identical transactions in quick succession from the US is enough to say there’s a high probability the customer is struggling with a zip code and we should send them some help.
Thanks all. We might have gone off on a tangent re. Zip codes but that’s my fault. I know usually the only places that ask for that are petrol (gas) stations…
But thanks to the person who said to select ‘checking account’, the only problem is I tried that and it still failed. Maybe just an incompatible ATM? I believe it was owned by BECU in Washington state, who are a credit union but I’ve managed to withdraw from other BECU ATMs before so I dunno
You always select credit card because foreign debit cards are processed as credit cards. Chase might be different as it may support checking and saving in America.
Use 10012 as a Zip code. That used to be my neighbourhood. Since living back in the UK, I’ve visited the US multiple times and I’ve used the same Zip code on the East coast, West coast and mid-America without issue.
Are you using one of your US cards with that zip code?
I’ve also heard of 99999 working. That’s generally the zip code you need to use if you want to open a US account as a foreigner (you usually have to do it in person these days).
No, UK issued cards. I’ve only had an issue once - with the original Monzo metal card - at a restaurant where the magstripe swipe wouldn’t work (magstripe was on in-app) and it had to be manually ‘rollered’
The same card worked elsewhere, so it must have been the Terminal.
