I’m a Bank Teller: 4 Reasons You Should Never Withdraw Large Bills From the ATM

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Going to an ATM is a convenient, fast way to interact with your money. You don’t even have to seek out a nearby branch of your bank to find an automated machine that can dispense cash on the spot. But an ATM cannot replace the wisdom and knowledge of someone who has worked in a bank as a teller for years.

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Bank tellers have all sorts of useful insight for customers that they can share from the other side of the bank counter. Important tips, such as the three instances of when to never ask for $100 bills at a bank, can help you make smarter and safer choices the next time you need to make a deposit or withdrawal.

This includes several reasons why you should never withdraw large bills from the ATM. Some bank tellers let you know why.

Also read banking mistakes to avoid, according to bank tellers.

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Security Issues

These days, you can often ask for the domination of bills at an ATM. Anything from as low as $5’s and $10’s to sometimes $100 bills. But you might be putting yourself in a precarious situation when you need to leave the ATM.

“There are some obvious and some less obvious reasons people should not withdraw large bills,” said Jose Acosta, a head teller at Addition Financial, who has been with the credit union for five years.

It’s worth being extra cautious about using ATMs for large withdrawals because of the risks of falling victim to attacks, either in-person or via hackers. Most bank tellers note that it’s safer to opt for digital payment methods or cash out smaller bills to reduce these potential risks and ensure you and your finances are safe.

“It can also be very dangerous to carry a large amount of cash on your person, if someone is following you or spots you are collecting large denominations from an ATM, you can become an easy target,” Acosta said. “As I like to tell members, ‘The best financial security begins with yourself.’”

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Businesses Will Not Accept Large Bills

“One reason to stay away from withdrawing large bills from the ATM is because a lot of businesses no longer take them,” Acosta said.

If a business does take cash, they usually are pretty upfront about what kind of cash they are willing to accept. Lots of shops and over the counter operations post signage reading that they will not accept bills over a certain amount or do not take bills of a higher currency.

“…even something as high as a fifty-dollar bill can easily get rejected, let alone a hundred-dollar bill. It could be to protect against potential counterfeit bills or simply they can’t make change,” Acosta said.

It’s worth highlighting this fact because many of the businesses you frequent are hesitant or refuse to accept large bills for smaller purchases, you could find yourself in a bit of a bind if you’re left with cash that you can’t spend with the ease you’d prefer.

Big Bills Are Easy To Lose

You might have more space in your wallet if you condense the cash into one or two bills, but what happens if you lose your wallet or the bills go missing? All of your money is gone in an instant.

“There is also always the chance to lose money, if by any chance the member or customer happens to lose the money and they withdrew a large amount, there is no replacing the cash,” Acosta said.

Not only can the big bills get lost with more dire consequences, but from a personal finance standpoint, going about your daily life with a sizable amount of cash on hand can throw a wrench into your budgeting habits, making it more difficult to keep track of your spending — especially if you are trying to manage your expenses and not lose track of the funds that you have available to you.

Depositing Difficulties

It’s not just a withdrawal of big bills that can lead to problems for you down the line as a banking customer — the opposite is just as true for attempting to put them back into the bank.

When you deposit large sums of cash into your account, particularly if the bills are of a higher currency, then red flags go up for the bank. That’s because many banks have regulations in place for security reasons, many of which apply to large quantities of cash arriving in accounts without a proper record or paper trail of where they came from. And who are the first employees at the bank to encounter such a transaction? The tellers, of course, because you most likely cannot make the deposit solely at an ATM.

The bottomline when it comes to big bills: withdraw them in small amounts and only occasionally when the need occurs for you to have large amounts of cash in your pocket.

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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: I’m a Bank Teller: 4 Reasons You Should Never Withdraw Large Bills From the ATM