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Our ATM Is Broken, Go To Jail
Actually, I do RTFA writes "This community recently discussed possible criminal prosecution for people who took advantage of faulty slot machine software. At the time, many here drew an analogy to a hypothetical ATM that dispensed too much money. Well, apparently, that too may result in criminal charges. Although they suspect that someone may have tampered with the ATM, they are considering charging anyone who got extra money from it." Here is an editorial musing on the morality of such unexpected windfalls.
Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
A couple of 30-somethings embark on the ultimate roadtrip
This is yet more evidence of how materialistic our society has become. It is NOT a crime to not report the observation of a beating or death. Yet it is a crime to take advantage of a faulty slot machine? Something is F'd. Big business has too damned much influence over the laws of this country. They don't care if people die as long as they get their fucking loot back.
Table-ized A.I.
when that bank errors in your favor, your screwed but when the bank errors in their favor, your screwed?
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Didn't your local friendly MMORPG teach you the consequences of exploiting bugs?
Seriously, just because you were not the one who hacked the thing, doesn't give you the right to exploit the flow. It's like stealing stuff from a shop because the window was broken by someone else.
Accidents do happen, and it should be the burden of the prosecution to prove the defendant knew of the exploit, and not vice versa, but if you see someone withdrawing 1 grand (max daily limit) from a machine that happens to give out $20s instead of $5s (especially if person never previously withdrew such large amounts), and of course the person conveniently "forgot" to check the amount he got, then you got a pretty good circumstantial case of malicious intent, and then the defendant better have some good justification for these actions.
Because bank lines were cut, some banks did NOT turn off their Manhattan ATMs so that customers could obtain emergency cash. Of course, when this was discovered, this was abused. I havent heard of the followups of any persecutions, if any.
FEMA disbursed cash with low identity proof threshholds because the assumption was many people lost their IDs during the disaster. This was abused (and mocked in the media). FEMA is trying to collect the cash, but many of the thieves dont have much. Its a dilemma: damned if you are too tight with aid; damned if you are too loose.
I personally ran into this problem myself. Back a couple of years ago, I drove up to my bank to get some cash. A guy came out of the ATM with a big sh*t eating grin on his face. I went in and chose to get $60 cash and was then handed $120. Just my luck!
When I came out, he asked if the same thing had happened to me and I said yes. We both left and went about our ways.
An article showed up in the news paper that had explained that a programming up date that had been updated that day had caused the machine to dispense double your withdrawal. In turn, the bank would withdraw the money from your account for the additional money that was dispensed.
I would think that they should eat it as it was their mistake (they have insurance), but the other side of it is that I don't think I should go to jail for some guys programming error.
Mine only included a clause pertaining to bank or in transit errors: not deliberate deposits by the company.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
So, there are some people who took advantage of an ATM defect (whether bug, intentional, or accidental programming error, error in loading cash, whatever.)
The bank knows who they are.
Why don't they just debit their accounts the correct amounts and forget about it?
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
How big must the 'windfall' be before we report it? When you're checking out at the supermarket and you notice your item rang up for $2.99 instead of $3.99 that it was supposed to, do you say something? Most of us probably wouldn't say anything, but would raise hell if it was supposed to be $3.99 and it rang up for $4.99. If it's just a $1 difference in our favor, we don't report and let it slide even though we know it's an error in their system. Is that now a crime? If not, then where do we draw the line? If $1 in our favor is not a crime, but say $100 in our favor is, what's the cutoff? Does this just apply to ATM/Slot machines? What if I bought ten items that were $1 off, do I report it then? How about fifty of those items?
It just seems to raise too many questions.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
The face-to-face equivalent of this is: you purchase a $5 item. You hand the clerk a $20 bill, He/she proceeds to give you three 20's in change instead of 3 5's. If you choose to say nothing and keep the money, then (1)is that "wrong," and (2)is that theft?
For the most part, honesty and fair play normally demands that you point out the error. After all, anyone can make a mistake when distracted, and the bottom line is that money will come out of the (probably very poorly paid) employee's pocket when the register doesn't balance at the end of the day. For me, I would be honest most of the time, but it depends on how I've been treated in the course of the transaction. For example, once at a Wal-Mart the clerk clearly rang the purchase up wrong, and gave me about $10 too much in change. When I politely tried to point that out to her, she got very huffy and defensive and insisted that I didn't know what I was talking about and that she did not make such mistakes. Needless to say, I pocketed THAT Hamilton. But is that "theft?" The possibility never occurred to me, and I've never heard of anyone being arrested for getting too much change and not returning it.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
big deal. I once found an ATM that dispensed cans of soda.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Since ATMs are opaque and you cannot see the contents of the money bins until you have taken money out, you have to do the "crime" before you can know that the ATM is misconfigured. Thus you are already a criminal. That doesn't make sense. Crime has to have an element of intent. If your only intent was to withdraw money owned by you from your own account, clearly no wrongdoing was intended.
But going back for seconds, after having noticed the mistake... now you're talking criminal intent.
--
I don't want to rule the world... I just want to be in charge of mayonnaise.
Maybe they got some of their voting machine code in there by mistake.
if (Republican)
{
Total += 20;
}
I kind of suspect it might have been something along those lines.
But it was more than 15 years ago, so I'm not that worried. Besides, they would go after my son, wouldn't they?
Because the bank has more money than you do, and therefore it is more powerful and plays by different rules.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
ATM is not a truck. It's a series of pneumatic tubes carrying cans of information (53 bytes each).
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Besides, they would go after my son, wouldn't they?
I am so glad you are not my dad.
I got nothin'
I deposit money into my sisters BoA account regularly at the drive-through. I just drive up with an account number and a deposit slip. Have a nice day...what REALLY bothers me is the fact that I'm 6'3" and hairy and they still give me suckers.
Isn't that weird about our culture? We punish bad behaviour with a vengeance, but rarely do we reward good behaviour.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
I didn't come across a lot of posts from /.'s who've worked in financial institutions. So, let me clear some things up. Forgive me if the exact details are off but it's been almost 10 years since i worked on the customer service side.
/. said that he o
- Any large cash transaction needs to be reported. I believe the amount is $10,000. You can deposit checks that are larger than this amount, and they do not need to be reported. There should be no way around this, even if you make 2 separate deposits at two different times on the same business day. A total $10,000/min limit exists for this report. And for those of you wondering, this isn't an uncommon event in a bank that works with businesses primarily.
- All money is accounted for, and double checked. So if you "deposit" more money than you were supposed to, its actually really easy to find out who's it is at the end of the day. Believe it or not, it is also easy when the CSR is short to find out who owes the money. Once the error is found, it is fixed immediately by debiting or crediting your account.
- There is nothing you can't do in a bank. If you have a check to deposit, and they want to put a 1 part or multiple part hold, don't be afraid to ask them to release more of the money right away or sooner. Oh wait that has nothing to do with this, but is still helpful. Always talk calmly and don't get upset!! The bank can almost always help you out.
- Accepting deposits has never been a problem, and even though bank of america sucks, and might require some form of ID, if i recall correctly, as long as they get "A" form of id, they'll take the deposit. I have done this for a friend many years ago, and they took my drivers license as the ID.
- Withdrawing money is a different story all together. When i worked on the CSR side, we were required to contact the customers home branch and request a fax of their signature card. That card is exactly what it sounds like, a card with their signature, but with a date and a bit of other useless info. The customer always has to sign a withdrawal slip or a check to cash on the spot, so you have proof of their signature. You compare that signature to the signature cards and if it's a match or close enough, they get their cash. When customers change their signature, and this is admitted on their behalf, then they are given a chance to write out their old signature. If the signature was close, then we'd look at the other info on the card to try to prove that it really is the account owner.
- With cards having magnetic stripes now, this is much safer, as long as no one has your PIN. But the signature above part is still important in case the ATM eats your card or it's lost/stolen. So make sure you take care when signing for a new bank account.
- ATMs are stocked with a LOT of cash at some point of the day, sometimes multiple times. Although i never really got to get a GOOD look at the machines, i was assured by everyone and the techs who went out to service them that "they don't make mistakes." Now, check my signature
- When an ATM dispenses money and it doesn't add up when the machines are checked, you pull up the records of it's transactions. And like i said before, and difference is easily found. In the cases that i've been aware of where large sums of money were paid out once or repeatedly, their cameras have come into play to help identify the end user. Regardless, the card holder is responsible. If the card was stolen, used and an extra $3,000 paid out, the account holder is responsible. That is why you MUST call and report your lost/stolen card immediately!
- If you are even short changed at an ATM, make sure to report it immediately to the branch if they are operating under normal business hours. If they are closed, call it in immediately and find out what you are required to do. Under normal circumstances you will get your money either through credit to your account or cash on the spot.
- One guy on
My abilities are only limited by my imagination
It would depend on the ATM machine, the location, and the amount I withdrew.
$20 at a convenience store in a good neighbourhood during the day, I'd certainly count the cash.
A large withdrawal at a bank-run ATM at midnight downtown, I would trust the bank rather then show the world just how much cash I have in my pocket.
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
Breaking a machine, or in this case taking advantage as a broken machine is criminal activity. But unless I can prosecute the CEO of bank for criminal negligence when I have no money for week due to the firms mistake, then I don't see how the bank should charge me for criminal activity when their machines give me $400 instead of $100.
...
The first time is an accident and you should not go to jail. However, if you continue asking for $100 then you are knowingly comitting a crime and should go to jail. I expect that the people to be prosecuted are those who engaged in the latter.
They can bankrupt me with no significant repercussion
You can sue them. And if the CEO knowingly repeatedly "improperly credits a bad check" he can go to jail to. Things seem perfectly symetrical to me. Either compare one accident to one accident or repeated abuse to repeated abuse, not one accident to repeated abuse.
Good to see you didn't
morcego
>How dare the evil corporations tell us what to do when they erroneously give us money that isn't ours!
Whatever happened to taking responsibility for your actions. If you gave me money but you didn't intend to then why should you be be able to force me to give it back?
They made the mistake, they should suck it up and eat it. It's called taking responsibility for your actions.
Oh sorry I forget, we are talking about corporations here. They were created specifically to shirk personal responsibility.
Never mind.
evil is as evil does