ATM in San Juan Bar Prints Crude Homophobic Message

Mar 5, 2013
3:14 PM

Today Terra.com reported that an ATM at “El Ocho de Blanco,” a bar in San Juan, Puerto Rico, printed a receipt with the sentence “WE HATE FAGS,” causing some in the island’s LGBT community to criticize the bar and the ATM owner for the offensive message. The bar’s management insisted that it had no control over what the ATM printed, saying that the ATM is owned by ATM Mobile Services. ATM Mobile Services has since apologized for the incident, but as of the initial posting of this story, there has been no explanation as to how it occurred or who did it.

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The bar had to post two Facebook updates in Spanish to explain what happened. Here is a translation of what the bar shared with its fans:

FIRST POST

Greetings to all our customers,

This afternoon we learned of a situation in relation to a message that appeared on a receipt from the ATM machine located at our business.

We must inform you, and not because we sympathize or support this type of message, that the machine is run by a private supplier (ATM Mobile Services, tel. 787-244-2001) and we were unaware of the content of the receipts until now.

We have taken immediate action by turning off the machine and making a claim to the supplier.
Sorry for inconvenience and any questions do not hesitate to contact us at: http://el8deblanco.com/contacto

Hugs,
The Management at El 8 de Blanco

SECOND POST

Greetings again,

After talking with ATM service provider for El 8 de Blanco, we proceeded to make a complaint in relation to the events that have happened today. The supplier (ATM Mobile Services) has verified the transactions of the last days and, from our end, we have verified our security system to see if it has been some irregularity.

It should be noted that El 8 de Blanco has no key or programming for the ATM, so we have no way to find the root of the matter. El 8 de Blanco just receives a commission for transactions because it is a private service as discussed above.

We have repeatedly said that ATM Mobile Services is at fault for this situation and they have yet to give us an explanation of how someone could enter into the machine’s operating system. Therefore, we hope that the company gives us an explanation.

As a precaution we shut down the system, and we are even considering the removal of the company’s service from our our business.

We reiterate again that we categorically repudiate the expressions that appear on these supplier’s receipts and we sympathize with what happened.

We will continue to report any updates, as we are all waiting for an answer.

Have a good night.