The Israeli Consumer Council yesterday filed a huge lawsuit against all the private companies and banks that operate ATMs, in the amount of NIS 458 million, claiming that double fees are charged for withdrawing cash from the ATMs.
In the class action lawsuit filed in the Jerusalem District Court through attorneys Dr. Shachar Katowitz and Vigal Weinstein, the Consumer Council claims that private companies and banks operating non-ATMs mislead consumers with the collection fees charged to them for withdrawing cash. In itself - for the withdrawal of cash, it turns out that an additional fee charged by the banks themselves for any action of withdrawal of cash is hidden.
In recent years, banks in Israel (excluding the Mizrahi Bank) have closed hundreds of branches throughout the country.
The banks did not leave automated banking instruments behind and did not send banking mobiles to the site, as required of them by Bank of Israel directives.
It is no wonder, then, that instead of banks come in private companies, which place devices for withdrawing cash.
In many areas of the country, the only option for consumers to withdraw cash is solely on private devices.
But this solution is the most expensive, as the private companies charge huge payments, at a rate that can reach up to a percentage or more of the amount of cash withdrawn.
The amount of the commission is fixed and stands at NIS 6-7 per withdrawal, regardless of the amount withdrawn.
But this is not enough, since in addition, banks charge their customers a fee for each withdrawal of cash on private devices.
In doing so, not only have the banks saved themselves the cost of operating the banking device required of them, but they also enjoy huge profits from these withdrawals.
16 years ago, the Bank of Israel removed the supervision of automatic devices remote from the Bank's branch.
As a result, there are currently only about 2,041 money-withdrawing devices attached to the bank's branches, compared with 4,620 private devices spread throughout the country.
In most private devices, the withdrawal amount is limited to only NIS 600 per withdrawal.
Therefore, a customer wishing to withdraw NIS 2,000 from his account had to pay four times to the private company, as well as pay four times the commission payments to the bank.
According to the Consumer Council, according to the statement of claim, the bank commission for withdrawing the funds from the private automatic devices constitutes a clear deception of the public.
The council also claims that this action by the banks and private companies constitutes a particularly severe injury to underprivileged populations, who rely mainly on cash and not on credit cards.
The council believes that these are double and cross-fees, partly in light of the ownership structure, according to which Discount Bank is also the direct owner at a rate of 10% of Caspont, which operates more than 70% of all private vending machines, and Discount and International Bank hold 10%. Additional shares of this company through CAL.
MK Michael Bitton, chairman of the Economics Committee: "This injustice does not go unnoticed, but hurts the middle class and the lower class in the most painful way.
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