Reflections

Protect Yourself At an ATM

Posted by on Jun 21, 2008 | 5 Comments

FOX TV recently broadcast a news item that I was not aware of. It had to do with what to do if you should ever find yourself a victim of an ATM robbery.

The news feature advised the victim to enter their PIN Number in reverse. Apparently, once you enter your ATM card in the machine the ATM machine will recognize that you have entered your PIN number in reverse and notify the police. For Example: if your PIN number is 1234 you would enter it as 4321.

The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to help you. I was amazed that this had been built into the ATM machine as a protection and no one seemed to be aware of it.

I hope you never find yourself in this position but if you do I hope that this will help you.

  • teddgcm

    I’ve never heard of that. I’ll ask my bank about that feature. The only thing I have seen are the “911″ buttons on some ATM machines. Maybe I’ll just try it and see if it works eh?

  • GreatDane

    Although the capability for this exists, the feature has not been implemented. http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/pinalert.asp

    And from personal experience, you are lucky in such a situation to be able to remember your name, much less remember your PIN and be able to punch it in in reverse.

  • qaqwex

    Urban myth – easily disprovable.

    If this was the case how could they allow palandromic PINs such as 1221. One of my ATM PINs is paladndromic and I haven’t seen the police rush round every time I use the card.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/reflections/ reflections

    It appears that you have a valid point. All I know is that Congress did approve this as a means of protecting victims at ATMs. However, I am not sure how many municipalities and/or banks have chosen to use it.

    My bank says that since the PIN is keyed to the ATM card the machine can verify if the number is reversed. I can only assume that your bank has not implemented the procedure in your area.

    Have a good day

  • Terryt

    Noted! And filed in the same category as urban legends forwarded from my Crazy Aunt.

    http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/pinalert.asp