Don’t stop for any reason. Whatever you do… DON’T STOP FOR ANY REASON!!

That’s the frantic advice being given by a chain email that made its way into my inbox today [1].

Your life depends on it.

You are not safe.

If you pull your car over, if you stop, you are going to become a victim of a gang robbery, rape or perhaps even murder.

Footnotes:

1.	Thanks to Darren K
	Return

There’s an email that has been going around for some time that claims that if you enter your PIN number into an ATM in reverse, the transaction will be successful but the police will be notified that a crime is in progress.

The alleged idea behind the claim is that you can comply with a mugger’s demand to withdraw money from your account, yet still notify authorities that you are in trouble.

I received another version of this in my email today:

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 system 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 the location. All ATM’s carry this emergency sequencer by law.

This information was recently broadcast on by Crime Stoppers however it is seldom used because people just don’t know about it.

This is the kind of information people don’t mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends

Unfortunately, it’s simply not true. Typing your PIN in reverse into an ATM will simply have the same effect as deliberately typing the wrong PIN.

As explained by the Bankers’ Association Of Australia:

The PIN has only one function – to allow the customer to access their account – and it must be entered correctly each time and kept confidential.

If a customer enters a PIN in reverse they will receive an error message and be prompted to provide the correct PIN.

For more information: False information circulating on e-mail about PINs