Is it really true that if you enter your PIN in reverse order during a robbery, the money will be “held” and the police will be automatically informed?
The following information is once again making the rounds on Facebook: “ If a thief forces you to take money from an ATM, don’t resist. Instead, you enter your PIN into the machine in reverse order. Example: If your pin is 1234, enter 4321. If you do this, the money will come out but will be held in the money slot. The machine immediately alerts the police without the criminal noticing and will take photos of the suspect. Every ATM has this feature. Stay safe."
The post itself was published on Facebook on January 6, 2017 and has already been shared almost 1,500,000 times!
Fact check:
The idea came from a businessman named Joseph Zingher, who even patented it. The post, on the other hand, reads as if this had been implemented.
It is not so.
Due to the problems that palindrome PINs (e.g. 1991 , 3883, 4224, etc. ) could not be recorded, the high probability of a false alarm and, last but not least, the guarantee that crimes could be prevented, this idea was never implemented. Furthermore, there was no interest in Zingher's idea from the banking industry.
The official statement from the Federal Trade Commission, under whose jurisdiction the matter would fall, points out that the emergency PIN has not been and is not used at ATMs:
FTC staff learned that emergency-PIN technologies have never been deployed at any ATMs. The respondent banks reported that none of their ATMs currently have installed, or have ever had installed, an emergency-PIN system of any sort. The ATM manufacturer Diebold confirms that, to its knowledge, no ATMs have or have had an emergency-PIN system
Conclusion:
The original post is from 2006 and is FAKE because it claims the technology is available at ATMs - but it is not. The idea and the patent have neither received enough support nor been implemented accordingly.
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )