Fraud
As with any device containing objects of value, ATMs and the systems they depend on to function are the targets of fraud. Fraud against ATMs and people's attempts to use them takes several forms.
The first known instance of a fake ATM was installed at a shopping mall in Manchester, Connecticut in 1993. By modifying the inner workings of a Fujitsu model 7020 ATM, a criminal gang known as The Bucklands Boys were able to steal information from cards inserted into the machine by customers.
WAVY-TV reported an incident in Virginia Beach of September 2006 where a hacker who had probably obtained a factory-default admin password for a gas station's white label ATM caused the unit to assume it was loaded with $5 USD bills instead of $20s, enabling himself—and many subsequent customers—to walk away with four times the money they wanted to withdraw. This type of scam was featured on the TV series The Real Hustle.
ATM behavior can change during what is called "stand-in" time, where the bank's cash dispensing network is unable to access databases that contain account information (possibly for database maintenance). In order to give customers access to cash, customers may be allowed to withdraw cash up to a certain amount that may be less than their usual daily withdrawal limit, but may still exceed the amount of available money in their accounts, which could result in fraud if the customers intentionally withdraw more money than what they had in their accounts.
Read more about this topic: Automated Teller Machine
Famous quotes containing the word fraud:
“The disfranchisement of a single legal elector by fraud or intimidation is a crime too grave to be regarded lightly.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“There exists in a great part of the Northern people a gloomy diffidence in the moral character of the government. On the broaching of this question, as general expression of despondency, of disbelief that any good will accrue from a remonstrance on an act of fraud and robbery, appeared in those men to whom we naturally turn for aid and counsel. Will the American government steal? Will it lie? Will it kill?—We ask triumphantly.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)