Who is frauding the ATM?
Some of the most fascinating stories in your life happen at your work place. The more critical the job, the more weird and fascinating it gets. Some memories and stories are just too good to leave forgotten in history, so I decided to share some of them on my blog.
It was back in 2003, while I was working in a bank switching company, that we received a call from a leading local bank telling us they are receiving from our public ATM machine VISA card they did not issue. Normally our ATM machine would send the VISA to the bank that issued them, but this one had the Bank prefix but was not their card. It was the start of fraud criminal chase that went on for days. What that basically means is that someone is using the switching company’s public ATM to try and fake some cards. He must be issuing fake cards, and using the public ATMs of ours as they don’t have security cameras. Soon after, the bank called and said they are receiving enormous amount of invalid cards now and this thing must be stopped. The criminal must be brought to justice. The user was doing it at random intervals, but from the same machine, sometimes at middle of the night as well.
Our efforts to install cameras on the ATM were going to take time for legal and contractual matters. The solution was to swallow the card when next incident happen. At least that way we can take a look at the card. Is it white blank card, or official issued card. We can hopefully also get the finger prints of the criminal of it, and catching him would be a piece of cake then. Couple of days took the developer to implement and apply the fix. I was at the edge of my seat. “Did they catch him?” I kept asking. Until one call came, and the manager was jumping literally “We got him!. Send the card over” she screamed.
A sealed envelop came then. The manager with excitement not exceeding mine quickly opens it, and down felt credit card with a picture on it. You should’ve seen the look at her face when she saw it. Without saying a word she picked up the phone and called the lady at the bank.
Manager: We got the card! Are you standing? If so be seated and be strong.
Bank Lady: What?
Manager: It’s your sister’s card and her photo on it as well!
Bank Lady: …
Bank lady called her sister to verify. She naively said YES I was at the center last night and the ATM swallowed my card. Apparently she didn’t tell her “every word you say will be taken against you”. This is Kuwait!. I really couldn’t hold the laugh inside at that time. She was chasing unaware her own sister. More and more investigations went on from both ends. It turns out the number on the card was not the same as the number sent to our system. There were few differences. More and more cases were checked, and there were no 7s on any card sent from that ATM.
Turns out the ATM card reader was a bit dusty and was reading all 7s as 0s! Thus, VISA cards were sent to the bank. The bank freaked it was a fraud. Issue investigation request, a card was randomly captured, and that card belonged to the sister of the bank lady who was requesting the chase. Just think, how ironic, and how improbable. Think on the other hand if it was a scary looking guy, or poor one whose card was swallowed. He naturally who’ve been arrested and interrogated before the mistake is found out! We blastered in laughs really that day. Nice to have such incidents to break the boring routine isn’t it?
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