For obvious reasons, our ATM personal identification number (PIN) numbers are supposed to be hard to guess.
One person who had a rather straightforward PIN nearly lost $8,000 recently after he left his card at an ATM machine.
The culprit was eventually caught and sentenced to 9 weeks’ jail on Wednesday (18 Nov).
According to Yahoo Singapore, 39-year-old Yap Yi San was about to use a DBS ATM machine in Toa Payoh when he noticed a beeping sound and a bank card sticking out from the card slot.
The incident allegedly happened on 2 Apr at around 7.50pm along Lorong 8 Toa Payoh.
Going by the ATMs around the area, there’s a high possibility that the theft took place near Lee Kwang Kee Teochew Cuisine — a popular supper spot.
Turns out, the 46-year-old victim had used the same machine to make a bank transfer earlier but forgot to remove his debit card, reports The Straits Times (ST).
Yap proceeded to remove the card from the machine and place it in his back pocket.
Around 15 minutes later, Yap reportedly went to another DBS ATM machine in Toa Payoh and used the victim’s card.
After 2 unsuccessful attempts at cracking the PIN, Yap finally gained access to the bank account after keying in “888888”.
We know that’s quite an easy PIN to crack, but we expected Mr Yap Yi San to key in either “123123” or “000123” — his name sounds similar to the numbers 123 in Cantonese.
The 39-year-old storeman apparently saw that there was $18,000 in the account and swiftly withdrew $2,000 on the spot.
Later, he visited a 3rd DBS ATM and withdrew $6,000 over the course of 2 days to pay off some debts.
A few hours later, the victim discovered the unusual bank transactions and lodged a police report at around 1.33am the next day.
On Wednesday (18 Nov), Yap pleaded guilty to 2 counts of theft and 1 count of dishonest misappropriation of property.
Yap’s lawyer reportedly told the court that his client’s actions were opportunistic and that the period of offence merely lasted 4 hours, reports Yahoo Singapore.
The District Judge agreed, saying that the card was found by “pure chance”. He also acknowledged the fact that the PIN comprising six 8s was easy to crack.
Yap was eventually sentenced to 9 weeks’ jail.
For theft, Yap could’ve been jailed for up to 3 years, fined or both. For his other offence of dishonestly misappropriating the wallet, he could have been jailed for up to 2 years, fined, or both.
We hope Yap learns from his lesson and will not commit a similar offence, no matter the temptation.
This incident goes to show just how important a ‘solid’ PIN is, which may potentially be the difference between you keeping your hard-earned money, or having it siphoned away.
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Featured image adapted from DBS.
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