I have just found out that this is incorrect, per Snopes, as follows: Origins: This seemingly helpful heads-up began circulating on the Internet in September 2006. However, seemingly is only a chimera, in that entering ones Personal Identification Number (PIN) in reverse at Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) does not summon the police. The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 compelled the Federal Trade Commission to provide an analysis of any technology, either then currently available or under development, which would allow a distressed ATM user to send an electronic alert to a law enforcement agency. The following statements were made in the FTCs April 2010 report in response to that requirement: FTC staff learned that emergency-PIN technologies have never been deployed at any ATMs. The respondent banks reported that none of their ATMs currently have installed, or have ever had installed, an emergency-PIN system of any sort. The ATM manufacturer Diebold confirms that, to its knowledge, no ATMs have or have had an emergency-PIN system. Ergo, there arent and havent ever been reverse PIN technologies despite Internet-circulated claims dating to September 2006 that anyone being robbed at an ATM simply had to enter his or her PIN in reverse to summon help. Moreover, said that FTC report: The available information suggests that emergency-PIN and alarm button devices: (1) may not halt or deter crimes to any significant extent; (2) may in some instances increase the danger to customers who are targeted by offenders and also lead to some false alarms (although the exact magnitude of these potential effects cannot be determined); and (3) may impose substantial implementation costs, although no formally derived cost estimates of implementing these technologies are currently available. No one in the banking industry seems to want the technology. The banks argue against its implementation, not only on the basis of cost but also because they doubt such an alert would help anyone being coerced into making an ATM withdrawal. Even if police could be summoned via the keying of a special alert or panic code, they say, law enforcement would likely arrive long after victim and captor had departed. They have also warned of the very real possibility that victims fumbling around while trying to trigger silent alarms could cause their captors to realize something was up and take those realizations out on their captives. Finally, there is the problem of ATM customers quickly conjuring up their accustomed PINs in reverse: Even in situations lacking added stress, mentally reconstructing ones PIN backwards is a difficult task for many people. Add to that difficulty the terror of being in the possession of a violent and armed person, and precious few victims might be able to come up with reversed PINs seamlessly enough to fool their captors into believing that everything was proceeding according to plan. As Chuck Stones of the Kansas Bankers Association said in 2004: Im not sure anyone here could remember their PIN numbers backward with a gun to their head. Barbara neither Smith nor Wesson is known to prompt mental acuity in those they are pointed at Mikkelson Last updated: 20 May 2014 Read more at snopes/business/bank/pinalert.asp#5MxPmSsp267D8Hp0.99
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 15:06:49 +0000
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