#4 - Hungry ATM

I was heading to a meeting in Houston Texas together with Mr. J, a senior professional who had been working with me for a couple of months. That was my first business trip to USA. I was quite busy with my daily work, so I decided to leave money exchange to Helsinki airport. In order to be on the safe side, I went to Tampere airport already 40 minutes before the flight. I thought that there is plenty of extra time, so I went to an ATM in order to withdraw some cash. Unluckily the ATM was hungry, so it ate my bank card which was also the only credit card I had. There I was at the airport heading to USA without money and without credit card. Not a convenient situation, indeed.

Visa - alive, not eaten.

I dialled the service number that was written on the ATM and heard that the machine has been eating credit cards the whole day and the service person who was fixing the machine had left the airport recently. I called directly to the service person who was just 20 minutes away from the airport. He promised to return back to the airport as soon as possible.

It was just a question of time if I would get the credit card before the departure. I was waiting patiently, i.e. I was pretty nervous. When the service person arrived, there was just about 5 minutes to before the gate was closed. He opened to machine and I got my credit card. No time to withdraw money anymore. However, I caught the flight and was one step closer to USA.

Lessons learnt:

Take technology risks into consideration.

Modern version of a hungry ATM.