thousand dollars. The man positioned himself outside the locked door of an ATM enclosure, and posed as a bank security officer. When customers approached the enclosure to use one of the ATMs, he would introduce himself and tell them he needed their assistance in catching a dishonest bank employee who had been driving management crazy. Could they please leave their bank cards under the locked door? He'd personally assure them he would get their cards back to them by the next day.
For those who complied, the con man would then fish the cards out from under the door. The next day, an accomplice would call the cardholder and report that the employee had been apprehended. He wanted to thank him for his help. Then he would point out that since the dishonest employee had come into contact with the card, the bank would have to give the customer a new PIN. Could he please have the old PIN to verify that he was speaking to the actual cardholder?
Incredibly enough, more than three hundred ATM users fell for this ruse. As enthralling as it sounds, I can assure you that a bank is never going to use a customer to assist it in nabbing a crooked employee. It will use a security guard or enlist a police undercover detective. Real life is nothing like the movies.
AND WITH SOME HEAVY EQUIPMENT . . .
Some criminals will physically assault an ATM. A thief in Norfolk, Virginia, broke through the ceiling of an ATM enclosure and used a crowbar and a blowtorch to try to get into the machine and collect the cash inside it. The machine put up a good fight, but it really took a pounding. There were scorch marks on the ATM from the blowtorch. There were scars from the crowbar. The handle of the door was broken off. The combination lock was destroyed.
A crook armed with the proper tools can break into many ATM machines within fifteen minutes. ATMs are actually rated on how resistant they are to physical assault. A certain model may have a TL-15 or a TL-30 rating, the number indicating the time it would take for a skilled thief to break into it with the right tools, and given a suitable environment. But a thief rarely has that much time, because ATMs are outfitted with detectors sensitive to things like vibration and heat. These detectors are usually silent, so the criminal doesn't know the police are on the way.
There was a mechanical engineer, however, who was very successful at breaking into ATMs. At one time, he used a burning bar on ATM vaults. Later, he used an industrial magnetic drill. Then he manipulated the locks and combinations on the ATM chests. He was ultimately caught, but not before he did a lot of damage and collected a good deal of money.
I always tell banks, keep the ATM area well lit and free from obstruction. Don't create hiding places with bushes or ornamentation near the machine. Put video cameras in the ATM enclosure to record criminals on tape. There are various types of alarms and time locks and relocking devices. If time locks are used, you can bet that no criminal is going to wait around for the time to elapse.
Generally speaking, it's not that easy to find an environment where a crook can spend even as little as fifteen minutes with a blowtorch opening up a machine without attracting attention. That's why crooks who are after the cash inside a machine - a convenience store machine may have as much as ten thousand dollars in it and one at a bank could contain something like seventy-five thousand dollars - will more likely just cart the whole machine off with them. A few years back, two criminals walked into a convenience store and identified themselves to the seventeen-year-old clerk as representatives from the bank. They said the ATM needed to be repaired, and they put it on a dolly and made off with it.
For the most part, though, relatively few thieves bother risking pulled muscles when they can make so much more money by ripping off card numbers.
THERE'S NOTHING LIKE OWNING YOUR OWN
Criminals are pretty nervy, and I've learned to never be surprised by what someone will try to get away with. And, given the right circumstances, you can get away with almost anything - up to a point.
The nerviest form of ATM fraud is when the thieves actually set up their very own bank machine. Here's