It’s 7 p.m. You’re meeting your friends for dinner and you need cash for a cab. You go to Leavey to use the Georgetown University Alumni and Student Federal Credit Union’s Automated Teller Machine, but it is down. You run to New South, but that ATM is not working either. Finally, you go to the Riggs Bank ATM on the side of the Ryan Building and withdraw $20, but not before agreeing to pay a $2 transaction fee.
Malfunctioning ATMs are not a new phenomenon at Georgetown, but earlier this week both the New South and Leavey ATMs were down at the same time for almost four days. While the New South ATM was fixed on Tuesday and, according to GUASFCU CEO Chris Petrilli (MSB ‘03), the Leavey ATM will be fixed today, having both ATMs down for an extended period of time is unacceptable for those who trust their money with the Credit Union.
Even though it might have been simply a bad coincidence that both ATMs broke and needed new equipment at the same time, the Credit Union’s response to the ATM outage has not been sufficient. While the hiring of an ATM technician to repair current problems and handle future issues is a step in the right direction, the Credit Union could have been more sensitive to the needs of its customers. If the ATMs themselves could not have been fixed in a more timely fashion, the Credit Union could have at least sent out an e-mail to its members explaining the outage. Additionally, it could have increased office hours to allow customers more chances to take out money. Possibly, it could have even worked out a system with the faculty credit union, which has an ATM in Leavey, to waive ATM fees for GUASFCU customers while GUASFCU’s ATMs were down.
The Credit Union may have already damaged its image with first-year students. Hopefully our student-run bank will handle future crises in a more professional manner.
