I recently received an email from one of my caring relatives about protecting yourself in the event you are robbed at an ATM. I remembered that this was not the first time I received this email. I thought it was strange that it was not covered by the local news when we get the nightly reports. I would assume that the news reporter would refrence this "PIN number reversal". It basically says that if you are ever robbed at an ATM, you can enter the PIN backwards to alert the police of the robbery. Below is the mail I received:

"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 broad-casted on FOX TV and it states that it is seldom used because people don't know it exists. Please pass this along to everyone possible."

 Dont get scammed-See scam letters

I started to wonder why I havent heard of this. I also wondered what would happen if your PIN was 3333 or 4554. What if you had dyslexia?

I did a little research and found out that the concept actually exists and its called a reverse-PIN emergency notification systems. I also found out that someone has a patent on the technology and has branded it the SafetyPIN.

The problem with this system is that the banks are not going to implement such a system because they feel that it would be ineffective and maybe dangerous for people to try to remember another code under extreme distress. Others feel that they are not going to implement the system because they are not willing to pay for the technology. Either way, the system is currently not implemented and is not expected to be implemented in the future.

My advise, give them the money. Anyway, you will get the money back from the bank after you report the crime to the police.

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