Less than $10 in your bank account but in need of some cash? With ATM machines typically only dispensing bank notes of $10 or more (with many banks only offering $20 as the minimum withdrawal amount), you may find yourself clean out of luck.
But now, according to CNN, this problem may soon be a thing of the past for some consumers, as new ATMs capable of churning out smaller bills have started to appear across the country. Throughout the past few months, both Chase and PNC have reportedly launched ATMs that allow customers to "withdraw denominations as low as $1 and $5."
Of course, normal bank fees will be charged to out-of-network customers, so paying a $3 fee for a $7 withdrawal probably doesn't make much sense.
Chase says that it hopes to have about 700 to 800 of these ATMs set up by the end of 2013; while PNC has reportedly already upgraded more than half of its ATMs and hopes to have all 7,200 machines capable of dispensing $1 and $5 bills by the end of the summer.
This new capability will not only allow strapped-for-cash college students to withdraw $3 to pay for a cheap lunch, but will also enable those who want to withdraw amounts that may be less or more than the usual denominations offered -- say $35 or $47, instead of $40 -- to do so with ease.
As this YouTube video from 2009 seems to show, some PNC ATMs have been dispensing $1 bills for quite a few years now.
"[I]t's definitely great to be able to withdraw the exact dollar amount you need," wrote YouTube user "Brendan Nee" who uploaded the clip, entitled "Withdrawing $1 at PNC bank ATM in Washington, D.C."
Though some have expressed glee at the new convenience, other netizens have been ambivalent about the news.
"Don't really see the point, but okay. If you have less than $20 in your account, then you have bigger problems than correct change," wrote Anthony Max, a CNN reader.
Perhaps Max would be more keen on a different, more wallet-friendly kind of cash machine: broken ATMs that spit out cash for "free."
In November, Mother Nature Network reported that crowds lined up in Glasgow, Scotland, to exploit a faulty ATM that was dispensing twice the amount of money that customers asked for (and subtracting only half of it from their accounts). The ATM thievery reportedly went on for three hours before police arrived to shut it down.
In 2009, a man named Ronald Page thought he hit the jackpot when he discovered that he could withdraw an "unlimited" amount of cash from ATMs located in casinos in the Detroit area. Page reportedly withdrew a total of $1.5 million in cash and went on a gambling spree. About two weeks later, however, he reportedly gambled the money away. He was later indicted on stealing bank funds.
What do you think of $1 ATMs? Tell us in the comments below.
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