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Haywire ATM Spits Out Free Cash

by Tom Conlon on August 24, 2007 at 11:23 AM

Haywire ATM Spits Out Free Money

Earlier this week, a particular ATM machine in Queenstown, NZ, suddenly became the city's hottest hangout, with lines of up to 20 people formed around it at all times of the day and night. Had this machine temporarily suspended those annoying ATM fees for a day? No, even better: It was accidentally spitting out $20 bills instead of $10 bills.

A contractor hired to maintain the machine had accidentally mixed up the ATM's internal boxes, putting 20s in the 10s box and vice versa. When a taxi driver saw giant lines for the ATM at four in the morning, he alerted police, who notified the bank.

Many an unscrupulous New Zealander got away with free money, while some guilt-ridden folks actually returned the extra cash the next day. Some were less fortunate. Since the 20s and 10s were mixed up, those who had requested $20 bills were accidentally shortchanged by half.

Nearly this exact same thing happened just last month at a Louisiana truck stop, when a machine spat out $20 bills instead of fives, doling out a total of $7,000 extra to some 26 people who police claimed they were able to identify and track down.

And, not too long ago, a young man in Virginia Beach was caught on surveillance camera making repeated trips to a gas station ATM. This guy had figured out how to override the ATM's normal operations by simply punching a code into the keypad. He fooled this machine into thinking it too was giving out fives when it was really giving out 20s.

But a 2005 story out of Oslo, Norway takes the cake. Two men running a recycling company were contracted by a bank to remove an ATM from a gas station -- only the bank had forgotten to take all of its money out of the ATM first. Sadly for the two men, the mix up was quickly discovered and the money returned. Though they didn't disclose how much their temporary windfall had earned them, the men had apparently stepped into enough free dough to buy a new home and take an expensive vacation.

So much for finders keepers...

From TG Daily

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Tags: atm, cash, free money, FreeMoney, mistake

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