Some months ago I asked about a hood-thingy that I noticed above some ATM’s card slot.

At the time no one seemed to know exactly what they were for though various theories were put out.

Well to-day I found out that they are a scanner used for paying some bills. Apparently you put the bar code of the bill you want to pay under the hood to get scanned and then pay your bill from the ATM.

It doesn't work for all bills but a neat idea and a convenient for some.

Beachcomber.

are you sure about this, more input required yet

That is accurate ...however you must be using an ATM card drawn on that bank for it to work

I thought they were a bit sussed at first. A credit card fraud technique is to put a device near the ATM slot that reads data back from the card as you put it in. The user thinks the device is part of the ATM itself so doesn't worry.

The bar code reader is in the similar place to where somebody would this device...

i can confirm that it is a scanner for paying bills by ATM, and as mentioned above only works with some bills. Of course u must have an account at the bank that the ATM belongs to in order to use it.

You can pay MOST but not all bills there ... AIS ... UBC etc are all available to be paid by Laser