How many times have you received the following email:
If you are ever forced by a thief or someone to take money out of an ATM machine , enter your PIN number reversed. So if your number is 1254, enter 4521.
The ATM machine will give you your money, but will automatically recognize this as a plea for help and will alert the police, unknown to the thief.
This option is in all ATM machines , but not many people know this.
Please pass this information on to others. No harm in keeping this in mind!!
BE CAREFUL, BE SAFE…
Now, this sounds very good, doesn’t it? But guess what? IT IS NOT TRUE! What irks me though, is that it was forwarded to me by none other than my “Relationship Manager” in my bank in India — Axis Bank. When I mailed him back asking for confirmation that Axis Bank was offering this service, there was no answer. His unsolicited marketing and other stupid emails continued though. It is so hard to get some emailers off your back.
Think about it. How would this work? Let us see. With the robber breathing down your neck, with a knife or a pistol poking you ribs, you enter your pin as 4521 instead of 1254. Does this dial some kind of a 911 (or 100 as used in India)? What happens then? The thanedar (police station chief) in the nearby police station just comes rushing to rescue you and handcuff the robber? Now, are the ATMs wired that way, and more importantly, are the police stations wired that way? Can Axis Bank assure me that this service will be available at all their ATMs? How about this one, pictured below?
What if you have a palindromic PIN, something like 1881 that is same forwards and backwards? Shouldn’t banks be warning us not to choose such PINs?
Based on what I have found upon searching the internet, do not rely on this trick to catch the robber who is asking you to withdraw money from an ATM at gunpoint.
According to wikipedia and several other sites on the internet, the concept of reverse pin was invented by a gentleman named Zingher, but was never approved by lawmakers and banks. Until such a thing is approved, and implemented, let us stop forwarding such emails.
Tags: atm, axis bank, bank, hoax, reverse pin
Subscribe by Email
you are right…..
in such situation one should tell the right pin to the robber and ask him to withdraw the moneyinstead of doing it himself …. by this the machine will take a snap of the robber with a built in camera which is not visible cuz its behind a black transparent square on the machine. snap is taken whenever any tranzation is taken. atleast you can prove that you did not do any tranzation with your individual involvement and one only tells the pin to other in such terrible situation. if you are lucky the bank can refund you the money otherwise you can satisfy yourself by thinking that you paid very little for your life.
thanks for such a nice information
before two months ago someone stolen my 25,000Rs thourgh use my atm pin no by hdfc bank but still i did not get any snap by bank
can u suggest me wat should i do.
[...] of ATM Card… Hi All, This is a email hoax. Please read the links below for clarification. kaulonline: Reverse Pin on ATM – Reality or Hoax? snopes.com: Reverse PIN Panic Code I have posted the info from one site, read on…. Reverse [...]
MERA ATM KA PIN SEND KADIJIYE CARD KA NO ….[ATM card number edited out by admin]