Pin Number Reversal : A Hoax

UPDATE (Esp. for some Big Dumbos) : It is a Hoax and I’m not advocating its legitimacy.

I received this email sometime ago which spoke of how if anyone is ‘forcibly’ made to withdraw money from an ATM, he/she can enter the pin number in reverse and still get the cash while the Police is notified silently in the background……

PIN NUMBER REVERSAL (GOOD TO KNOW)If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN in reverse.

For example if your pin number is 1234 then you would put in 4321. The ATM recognizes that your pin number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine. The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to help you.

This information was recently broadcasted on TV and it states that it is seldom used because people don’t know it exists.

Once I read that, I was ROFLMAO!!! I mean, how inane and stupid this was! The creator must have had a peanut where the brain usually is! Firstly, what if the ‘reversed’ pin happens to be somebody else’s pin? Each card is paired with a unique pin number.Entering the wrong pin would clearly be not matching with the card! Oh waitaminnit…..the super-intelligent ATM machine would take the pin, check for its reverse, confirm it is the ‘original’ pin and decipher that the withdrawee is at danger and surreptiously calls the police! What hogwash!

Secondly, what if the pin number happens to be a palindrome? 1111, 8888, 1221, 6226 and so on…….if that is the case, say goodbye to your money

A li’l bit of searching would lead us to Snopes wherein this whole thing is laid bare as being an elaborate hoax. A valid pint it states is “Even if police could be summoned via the keying of a special “alert” or “panic” code, they would likely arrive long after victim and captor had departed” and also “I’m not sure anyone here could remember their PIN numbers backward with a gun to their head.”

So, the next time you receive such an email…simply click on the ‘Delete’ icon!