spit out of an ATM machine is a nice convenience for the customer. It's also a great convenience for the criminal. It has part of your account number on it and how much money is left in your account. In some cases, it even has your PIN. Until a few years ago, federal law mandated that ATM receipts had to carry your full account number on them. That made it too easy for crooks. I was among those who testified in behalf of a change in the law, known as Regulation E. It was finally changed, and now receipts only have to carry half of an account number.
Even so, don't throw away your receipts at the ATM machine in those receptacles banks (or crooks) put there. Criminals retrieve them and use even fragments of information to carry out shoulder surfing scams. Rip the receipts up before you throw them away, or take them with you. If you're going to leave them behind, you might as well leave your bank card, too. When I use an ATM, I always choose the option, "No receipt."
All ATM cards have a daily limit that prevents the cardholder or any other user of the card from withdrawing more than a certain amount of money in any one day. Cardholders, however, are seldom aware that certain banks allow a cardholder to go into the bank and withdraw larger amounts on the card using only the PIN and card. No further identification or signature is required at these banks. This allows a thief who has a person's card and PIN to withdraw the maximum allowable at the ATM and then, after checking the account holder's balance, to go into the bank and withdraw additional amounts at the teller. If my bank did that, I'd have them put the same limit on a teller withdrawal, unless further identification is furnished.
And here's some advice about PIN numbers: be a little bit more inventive in your choice of number. Surveys of our habits are interesting fodder, but - guess what - criminals read surveys, too. They know that 70 percent of people use their birthday or their street address as their PIN. If a thief gets hold of your purse or wallet, he's got your street address. If it's a four-digit address, that's probably your PIN. Any number of cards in your wallet will have your birthday. Another common choice is the first four digits or the last four digits of your Social Security number. Thieves love that, too. Use an easy-to-remember number that's not tied to you, a number that isn't going to be found on any piece of personal identification. I have three sons, and so I use their birthdays for my PIN numbers. I never forget my kids' birthdays, and yet no one can find those dates on anything in my wallet.
LEAVE MY EYES OUT OF IT
Because PIN numbers are the weak link in the system, there's been a lot of discussion about doing away with them. The hot new technology for ATMs is biometrics, which is the statistical measurement of biological phenomena. An array of devices have been invented that will identify people through physical characteristics, whether by hands, faces, voices, eyes, or even smells. One of the most promising is a machine that identifies you by your eye. When you insert your bank card, a pea-sized camera locates your face, homes in on the eye, and snaps a digital image of your iris. It can do this from as far away as three feet. The computerized "iris code" then gets compared with one that the customer furnished to the bank. If the two codes don't match, the ATM won't work. The entire process takes not even two seconds.
The key to mass deployment of these systems is that they work no matter what contingencies arise. For instance, face recognition systems get foiled when a man grows a beard or a woman dyes her hair. If someone puts on a significant amount of weight and his face gets pudgier, that alone will throw off the machine. But the iris systems work, even if a customer wears glasses or contact lenses. They work at night and in dim lighting. Face recognition systems are thwarted by twins, not that theft by one twin against another is one of the world's major crime problems, but even twins have unique irises.
Fingerprints can change from injury or deliberate alteration. But not irises. From the time someone is about eighteen months old until