dsoltesz's Journal: Don't forget your card in the ATM machine!

An acquaintance of mine relayed the following experience at an ATM:

He went to the ATM machine, performed a transaction, then walked away from the machine, forgetting his card. The next guy in line pulled the card out, put it back in and pulled out $100 and was never asked to enter the PIN number for the card. The third person found the card and turned it into the bank. My acquaintance complained to the bank, who said, in effect, "yeah, we know about this 'feature' but it's too petty to worry about" and reimbursed the stolen $100.

To clarify, it appears once a card has been used, the PIN successfully entered, and the transaction completed, that the ATM remembers the PIN/authorization and allows the cardholder to subsequently insert the card and complete additional transactions without reauthorization (i.e. entering the PIN) provided (I assume) second card hasn't been used and somehow cleared knowledge of the first card.

I cannot vouch for the reliability of this tale, and I didn't turn up anything specific about this 'feature' in the 15 seconds I spent searching the net.

Does anyone else have experience, knowledge, or information about this that corroborates this tale? I'll keep looking and post anything I find.

Doesn't sound right to me

[MonTemplar]

I suspect that modern ATMs would wait for you to retrieve your card from the slot (it only ejects half-way) before spitting out cash, and would probably beep at you if you didn't. Certainly, once the card is removed and the money taken, the ATM resets itself, so putting the card back in means entering the PIN again. That's my take on it anyway.

-MT.

Re:Doesn't sound right to me

[dsoltesz]

It didn't sound right to me either - I doubt my acquaintance is making it up, more like he might not have the facts straight. The acquaintance does live in a small town where the banks might just be using old equipment, though I believe it happened at a major bank which I'd want to believe would be keeping up with corporate security standards.

I use ATMs so infrequently, I can't recall if the ones around here insist you take your card before handing out dough - I don't think so. I wonder if one can push t