LBS Financial Credit Union fixed a broken ATM near the Cafe Pavillion on the Liberal Arts Campus, giving student and staff access to faster, easier and cheaper banking solutions.
The ATM next to the Cafe Pavillion was down for about two weeks making it very inconvenient for students who have to do transactions, giving them only off campus options.
Now that it’s up and running students and staff can make cash withdrawals and deposits on campus again.
Although it was out of service for two weeks it was repaired and had over 100 transactions from August to September according to Heather Summers, senior vice president of marketing for LBS Financial.
“It was a little rocky at first in July, but transactions just kept growing and the down-time wasn’t that long,” Summers said.
When an ATM Machine is down it sends a message to the vendor who usually hires a tech to fix it remotely.
If the vendor still can’t tackle the problem they will send out a technician in the field to resolve the issue and an armed security guard has to be dispatched just in case of dangers in a high risk area.
“The job can get dangerous, people make threats, I watch his back while he gets his job done making sure no one touches him or gets too close, I make sure he has his space,” Ron Solis, a privately contracted armed security guard for LBS Financial said.
ATMs usually get repaired during business hours, so people sometimes try to use the machine as the techs do their troubleshooting.
“People get angry when we’re fixing the teller machine and they make threats -I’ve heard it all from they’ll take the money from us by robbing us to ‘I will F***k you guys up,’” Solis said.
Paying attention to your surroundings is an important part of the job for ATM repair so having an armed guard is necessary.
LBS Financial works with Diebold Nixdorf, a company that specializes in the distribution, operation and repairs of financial systems like ATMs, self-service checkouts and other digital transaction apparatus’ to fix issues like broken ATMs out in the field.
“Most ATM’s break down due to other end users putting tape, rubberbands or simply not removing items before they stick their money in the machine which makes up most of our calls,” Brandon Neri, field technician for Diebold NixDorf said.
LBS financial tables at events here on campus, setting up booths to inform students who want to open accounts with them or apply for student loans with just the scan of a QR code.
LBS Financial offers free banking transactions for members of any credit union and only charges a dollar fee for members of other bank branches.
“We offer students their first five dollars to put into their ledger when they open an account with us and we waive fees just to get you started,” Summers said.
LBS Financial memberships are catered toward but not limited to members of Long Beach Unified school district such as students and staff members, including professors and teachers.
“LBS is deeply-rooted to Long Beach going as far back as 1935, operating out of homes and classrooms at Wilson high school” Summers said.
Employees from Long Beach Unified School District and Long Beach City College applied for a credit union charter to serve Long Beach School employees and other local businesses so they would be able to have affordable financial options.
“LBS Financial also makes a big impact in the community, offering scholarship programs as well as encouraging its members to make smart financial decisions and offering rewards like Universal Studios Hollywood tickets for doing so,” Summers said.
College students who open a LBS Financial college student checking account have the option receive a debit card that comes with LBCC’s or CSULB’s logo on it, or simply choose the standard blue LBS debit card.
“We want to make students and our customers feel like they belong in the city,” Summers said.