How do I get an ATM in my business? | FinTech | B2B Vault The Payment Technology Podcast: Episode 107

Hey, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast with your host Allen Kopelman, and we'll be providing you educational information about business payments, fintech, decentralized finance, and the technology businesses use in today's world. And in today's podcast, we're going to be talking about ATMs, managed ATM services, and all the different changes in the world of ATMs. Very exciting stuff for those that are into the ATM industry. Um, a lot of people have—

yeah, no, but there's a lot of people that have ATMs in their store right, right. Or they're— they use an ATM, or they have ATM at their business, and— or they want an ATM at their business.

Very true.

So they don't know how. We're gonna tell them how it works a little bit.

Well, let's get into it.

All right, so it's, you know, we have the ATM, uh, convention coming up for the National ATM Council. That's going to be at the Hard Rock Cafe, the Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood. Yes. Yeah, Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. I'm sure some of the ATM guys there will be leaving their— leaving donations at the blackjack table. Leaving donations, I like that. Yeah, some of those ATM profits will be going there. But that's, you know, it's a time, you know, education is important. For us to be abreast of what's going on in the ATM business, because this is when we find out about all the compliance things that are coming up from the— and going on in the business. So, you know, there's going to be speakers and then vendors there, and hopefully we're gonna— they asked us to come down there and do a podcast, maybe two. So hopefully we're gonna go there and at least do one podcast, maybe two, because— and, um, so we're gonna, you know, there's gonna be different vendors. So the companies who make the actual machines are going to be there. And since there really hasn't been a convention in about 2 years, you know, because with the pandemic, maybe almost 3 years, it's gonna be a lot of people there, I'm sure. There's going to be a lot of people. The hotel sold out already. Are you kidding me? No, they sold out their room block already for this convention. Yeah, so it's going to be—

there's going to be that many people there to be— wow, this fintech industry is just nuts. I mean, it's crazy to me how many people come to these conventions for credit card processing or ATMs. I mean, it's just nuts.

Yeah, so there's going to be You know, I'm sure a lot of people coming from all over. I know some guys coming from Montana, New York, New Jersey. People come from all over to go to these conferences because this is where you can learn. This is where you're going to see the— this is the first time we're going to see all the new machines from Hyosung, where I'm a big Hyosung fan.

Genmega, the other super nerdy stuff, man.

The other company And they're going to show their new ATMs, and they're coming out. I've seen some videos already, like they have some kiosks coming out. They have a new machine, it's an ATM and a kiosk together. So all sorts of, you know, different types of configurations. I mean, we've gone through a lot in the ATM industry. When I, I remember in the early 2000s, like maybe it's two— I have to look up the years, but the first one that was a big headache was that came out with this American Disabilities Act, ADA compliance. And all of a sudden there was all these ATMs that were no longer usable because they were too— the keypads were too high, right? Right. So all of a sudden, ba-boom, people were scrambling around, oh, we need to get a new ATM, need a new ATM, need a new ATM. Because why? They're not gonna— they're gonna get, uh, whacked from the American Disabilities— gonna come in and file a lawsuit against them, and then they're gonna have to pay money to get out of it or whatever. But, you know, so that was a big changeover. We had a big change with the PIN pads, upgrading PIN pads. That was a software deal. And then the last one was the EM— was EMV, which went into effect for credit card in 2015, but EMV actually went into effect on ATMs like 2012, 2013.

When is the conference?

Um, I think it's the September 13th and 14th. It's actually the first day there's like a reception at night, then the next day is like a whole—

the whole—

all the speakers and the show and the whole deal.

Cool.

So it's pretty cool. It's going to be pretty cool. Like I said, because people haven't had one in a couple of years, a lot more people are going to come than usually come to these things. Well, I mean, you said it's sold out, but yeah, and they're offering rooms at nearby hotels. So it's important, you know, we're gonna hear a lot of— there's going to be a lot of important information discussed at these things, you know, general information. So Like now there's a new thing coming out where there's new PIN pads supposed to be put on machines by 2025. Got plenty of time for that. They're talking about PCI compliance updates to machines because, you know, some people might be running older equipment that's using, uh, old software. You have to really keep up with ATMs. We're lucky we work with a company that has these remote boxes on the ATM, like a wireless box. So that can help— that what keeps the software up to date so we don't have to go running out there and try and installing software and wasting a couple hours. Um, I'm sure they're going to discuss cashless ATM compliance, which we'll talk about a little later. ATM security, it's always a big thing because There's always— every once in a while you read these stories about jackpotting.

What is that?

Okay, so jackpotting is when somebody basically figures out how they can break the program in the ATM. Usually I've asked the ATM companies about this. I'm like, you could literally go buy the keys to the ATM, probably off eBay, but all it's going to do is open up the top of the ATM.

Okay, right.

Or the bottom door. But the bottom door, you need to have the combination, or you gotta have the fobs to open the door, right? The vaults, you're not getting in there. But in the top, you can actually maybe do something. So people were getting into the top of the ATM, unplugging the communications cable, plugging something else in there, and then plugging something in between it. Like an additional device, and then they go stick their ATM card in there, ask for $20, and instead the ATM spits out a couple grand.

Nice.

Then they go take the thing out of the top. Now you got to be pretty slick to be doing that, or pretty ballsy, like, to be doing that, like, in somebody's restaurant. That's why we try— when we install ATMs, I follow simple rules. You need to be able to see it, like it's not behind a wall. Needs to be out somewhere where people can see the ATM. Like, you don't want to put it in a hallway where somebody could get back there and have their time to work on it, right? Uh, you want it like out in the open. Somebody's not gonna go mess with it. And you want to keep it away from windows and— windows and doors, because you always see stories about people trying to steal the ATM. I mean, we've had a couple ATMs got broken into. One I felt really— I mean, listen, the places we put them in, the, the business owner has to have additionally insured, you know, they have insurance, so they have to have insurance, you know. If the ATM gets broken into, they're responsible for the, the cash. Sometimes the cash is insured in some cases. In some cases it's not insured. But at the same time, you know, they have to have alarm systems and all that. But we had a place, the alarm didn't go off. Somebody got in there, they used like a saw to cut the side open of the ATM. And then I laughed because they didn't know what they were doing. They only got out like $300, so they were probably pissed. There was more money in the ATM, but they didn't obviously like look at some good YouTube videos. And I've seen other videos like on Facebook, see people buy an ATM at a, uh, like at an auction, that's right. Yeah, they buy it at the auction, then you see them trying to smash open the ATM. I just like laugh my ass off when I watch these videos because they're doing like the stupidest stuff. They're trying to pry open the door. I mean, man, like, why don't you just call like an ATM guy up instead of sitting there for 45 minutes trying to bust open the— bust out the door of the ATM.

How much is the ATM guy gonna charge?

A couple hundred bucks.

That's my point. What if there's nothing in it?

Then you wasted a couple hundred bucks. Otherwise, either that or figure out, like, call somebody on the phone and go, how do you get this thing open?

I don't know.

It's just kind of funny. You'll see them, like, busting— they're trying to bust the top off. They're They're trying to figure out, wait, you know, they think the money's coming out of the— where the credit card goes in. I don't know if they're fooling around or not, but I mean, the other thing is, is, you know, they wreck a perfectly good ATM that they could have sold the parts for. It's right. Even they could have called the ATM guy, said, hey, open this up. There's nothing in it, great. You want to buy it from me? Want to buy it for the parts? I mean, the dispenser alone is worth close to $1,000. Just a dispenser, but they destroy it because they're drilling holes in the thing and everything. So it's kind of funny. I should put a link to one of the— I should find one of the videos and we should put a— we should make a podcast and play it and then sit here and laugh at the guy trying to bust in the ATM. But it's just crazy, like, you know, call somebody, let them do it, right? I've had people, they're like, oh, can you come remove the ATM out of my business? And I get there and I'm like, okay, like, you have the— you have the combination? You got the keys? They're like, no, no combo. I'm like, okay, it's gonna be $500. They're like, $500 for what? I'm like, you think you're getting it out of here? Like, have you— you're gonna wreck the whole ATM, you know, trying to get it out. So, you know, because they don't know how to do it. I've seen people try to do it. They call a locksmith and the locksmith comes over and takes a drill and puts 20 holes through the door of the ATM, and then they go, oh, I got the door open, and they find out there's no money. Meanwhile, they destroyed the door, the dispenser, the locking mechanism, the locks, everything. It's of no use to anybody. Well, I mean, once you destroy the dispenser, I mean, you destroyed the garbage. Yeah, I mean, you see, like, I have extra dispensers because they're like gold, right? You know, sometimes people have a broken ATM, we just buy it for the parts, take the printer off, take the dispenser off, you know, take the screen, the whole front of the machine off, and keep that, keep it for, for parts. But you can't do anything if once you wreck the dispenser, you know, let's say the ATM is like a $3,000 ATM, you wreck the dispenser and the door, just throw the thing in the garbage. But the jackpotting is crazy. Somebody, in fact, a couple of years ago there was some guys jackpotting ATMs in Orlando and they kind of had a pattern where they were doing it, and the FBI was— started watching locations. Yeah. And they caught them.

Really?

Yeah, they caught the guys. They were looking for a specific kind of an ATM, and they were looking, and they were in— they were going through an area, and what they were doing was they would— like, one guy would go in. They were— they would do it like teamwork. One guy would go in, unlock the ATM, and then another guy would kind of slide the thing back. Somebody else would come over, you know, and they would try to keep the employees busy in the place, you know. Or they would find one that's in like a back hallway, nobody's watching it. Nice stuff like that. So they identified a few spots they might hit. They saw the people set it up. Sometimes they wait because they see like maybe there's no money in it. And also, you know, if somebody's watching their ATM, all of a sudden they're going to see a bunch of, you know, bills get dispensed out of it. Remote— if you have remote monitoring set up, and you can shut, you know, but by that time it's too late, the money's stolen.

Real quick, before you get into the rest of that, man, thank you to our sponsors MPS Printer and Nationwide Payment Systems. Thank you. Shout out to our listeners. Make sure you continue to share. Check back every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday for podcasts. Head over to B2BVault.info to catch up on past episodes or to link up with Allen or myself. There's also, if you need a merchant account, there's an Apply Now button on the top right. Click that Apply Now.

Or any questions.

Let's go. If you need an ATM, hit up Allen at— text book to the word 954-827-9818, and he'll get back to you and get you, uh, an ATM in your business.

Yeah, but the jackpotting, no good, no good. So we're excited to see the new ATMs coming out, some kiosks, to see what we can do with those. There's always going to be talk. I saw there's several a company is going to be there showing their Bitcoin, either Bitcoin ATM or Bitcoin that you can buy through the ATM machine, or something to do with Bitcoin. Um, so that'll be, you know, that's always a big talk, you know, what, you know, cryptocurrency, it's a hot topic.

Yeah.

Um, especially with the government right now. And we'll see what happens with coin. The price has been going down, down, down. Not so good. So let's talk about cashless ATMs. We touched on it in another podcast the other day when we were talking about payment trends, and it seems that some of the cannabis associations have come out with statements, you know, telling their members, you know, get rid of the cashless ATMs. So there is a compliant solution, but it's a cash, you know, an ATM that dispenses cash. So you have to, you know, and there are banks, there's 2 or 3 different banks that allow people like myself to put an ATM in the dispensary. We load it with our cash, cannot load it with money from the dispensary, and then we take care of these.

That's the only compliance solution that they have.

Yeah, that's what they allow.

It's the stupidest thing in the world.

Well, they feel— the, the, uh, couple of the, um, cannabis associations feel that if maybe these, uh, dispensaries would stop using all these workarounds, that they would have a better chance of getting the SAFE Banking Act passed. But I don't— I'm not sure. I mean, first of all, cannabis, when you talk about legal cannabis, right, California has had it for a decade at least, right? At least maybe longer than 10 years. So you would think that in all this time, as each state keeps passing, you know, legalization for— like in Florida, we have medical marijuana, now they're pushing for recreational marijuana. So you would think as all these states start to push through all this stuff that federal government— and especially now we have this huge deficit, right? They should be tapping into this, tapping into this big cash cow, multi-billion dollar industry, and, you know, collect taxes on it. Not only just the taxes, I don't even know if you have to pay income tax Like, if you own a dispensary, I'm not even sure what happens with that. It's a— it's like a whole crazy thing with the—

the state tax, you mean?

No, they pay state tax, but I'm talking about federal income tax.

Well, obviously they're not paying federal income tax.

That's what I mean. It's crazy. Like, what— what's going on? Billions of dollars.

I mean, I'm sure they're liable to put together their tax return at the end of the year, but how does And it's crazy, like, I was hearing—

I was listening to, uh, some guys talk about cannabis taxes the other day. I was talking to them and they were like, yeah, we have a huge problem. Um, they were asking me like, oh, can I put them in touch with like the armored car company? Because they were like, yeah, with these cannabis places, they want to come in with a whole bag full of money and pay their sales tax at the tax office. They're like, we don't want that. What are we going to do? We're not equipped to like handle that.

The IRS?

No, not the IRS, the local sales tax places. So I was talking—

what is— that's not the dispensary's fault, right?

That's what I told them. I said, you know, get it fixed, dispensary. How else are they supposed— what are they supposed to do? I mean, some of these— I was here, I was talking to one of the dispensary owner that were talking to us about an ATM machine. I was like, well, we can't sell you one, an ATM. You have to get a managed contract with us. We put in the ATM, then we put in our own cash, you know. You can make a commission. We can't use your cash, you know. We can't have the cash— cash can't be from somebody who, who owns— yeah, right. We can't do that. I know people who tried to do that, and they've had their bank accounts closed and everything because eventually the bank finds out you're not coming in to pick up 20s. They have anti-money laundering. They figure it out. They go, okay, here's Justin's dispensary. Oh, this guy's getting deposits every day— $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, right? You're getting deposits. Then they call you on the phone, hey, where's all this money coming from? Oh, I have an ATM. Well, uh, Justin, you're supposed to come pick 20s up at the bank. You're right, right. And then put it in the ATM machine. But you're not doing that, you're just recycling the money from your business, right? They go— they go— Justin goes, yeah. They go, well, you can't do that anymore, your bank account's closed. Boom, done. Then stupid. No, but that's what happens. I mean, I've talked to dozens and dozens of dispensary owners and I understand their pain, right? But there are banking solutions available, they're just like ridiculously expensive. No, I talked to a company. They want like a $2,000 setup fee, then they'll come to the dispensary and pick up the cash like once a week or once every 2 weeks, and it's another couple of grand. And then they'll get you set up with the bank, and the bank charges $2,000, $3,000 to set up your business, but they come pick up the money, you know.

I don't— it's good to me.

I don't know what the profit margin is, but the profit margin is. But you know, you got to get your money in the bank. Either that or these places are using like private, um, like private, um, vault places where they're having— where there's tons of money. Rocky, come on, I know you want some more snacks, but you can't be— maybe he's having the munchies because we're talking about the Spenceries.

Perfect time to wrap it up, buddy.

But there are compliance— so, you know, that's the only compliance solution we can offer is put in a physical ATM, use the managed services, and have cash for your customers. And then if you need help getting banking, we can, we can kind of tell— we can tell you the roadmap because we know what what type of banks are offering that to customers. Even I tell people, they're in the hemp industry, CBD, they have a hard time with the bank. Best thing, go to a credit union, go to a local community bank, state-chartered banks. They can take your money, they don't have a problem with it, right? Go to those banks first and get, get it set up. It's not that, you know, it's not, it's not that complicated. But, you know, we provide consulting services for these kind of situations, you know, because it's in the high-risk category.

Sounds good.

All right, so that's today's topic today about ATMs. If you need an ATM in your business, hit— text the word BOOK to 954-827-9818. We'll set up an appointment with you. You can also go to the website b2bvault.info. Hit us up on social media, we're everywhere at B2B Vault. You can find us on all the podcast world, wherever you listen to podcasts, we're probably there. B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast. Check it out. Hope everybody enjoyed today's show and, uh, peace out. Rocky, what are you getting the munchies during the show?