Citibank ATM Fun

by Ice of Spides

Apparently at least one Citibank ATM at each branch has special access.

It's my guess the access is for some sort of system-wide maintenance, but it might be special account access for employees or others.  Or perhaps it's simply regular ATM access without the fancy graphical front end.

To find if a machine has this feature, ignore the instructions to dip your card.  Instead tap your finger twice in the top third of the display.  (Citibank machines have touch-sensitive screens, and they display software buttons.)  This is the only part you can perform without an ATM card.  If you hear a beep with each tap, you're golden.

The ATM will now show a "DIP" instruction.  What graphics there are from this point on are crude, apparently because the public was never intended to see them.

The only way to proceed now is to dip your ATM card, so be warned that your identity, and everything you do, can be known to Citibank.  This alone provides the bank with some protection against any serious hacking.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

After the ATM detects the dip, the screen will display a set of four choices.  In the center is a text-entry box, one character high, and perhaps twelve or fifteen characters long.  Each tap in this box enters an asterisk.  Surrounding this text-entry box are four buttons, each with a different shape, labeled Enter, Go, Exit, and #.  Don't be fooled by the absence of a keypad; this is primitive stuff here.  The # button is where you type in your secret PIN.  Tap once for each number and tap the Enter button to enter that number.

For instance, if your secret PIN is 6543, tap the # six times, then the Enter, then the # five times, and then Enter, etc.  Each press of Enter adds an asterisk to the text entry box.  After your PIN has been entered this way, press the Go key.

If you typed inaccurately or pressed buttons in the wrong order, a clock face and "Wait" message appear, and then a Pac-Man's death sound signals failure as "Sorry!" is displayed.  You're popped back onto the first public screen.

But if all went well, a new screen now appears, with Exit and Go buttons at the top, and Cash and Deposit buttons at the bottom.  (The Deposit option will only appear if you use a Citibank ATM card.)  You can withdraw money from your account using the same crude method of counting.  A double-sized receipt prints at the conclusion of your transaction, which raises the possibility of this being an undocumented service for sight-impaired people.  At the conclusion of a successful transaction, victory music plays - guaranteed to get you stares from fellow bankers.

Note:  When put into this special mode (two taps on the upper-right hand side of the screen), the ATM will remain there for at least a few minutes.  Some branches have this "feature" in all of their machines making it very easy to cause massive confusion for anyone attempting to use them.