ATM Gives Shoppers Double-Money

[Jitway]

A cash machine became a big hit this week after it started paying out twice as much money as it should.

 

The ATM, outside a supermarket in Hull, began spewing out double the money on Tuesday afternoon and continued doing so for several hours, drawing a crowd of hundreds eager to cash in on the mistake.

 

Those requesting the maximum daily withdrawal of 300 pounds were being given 600 pounds and a receipt for 300.

 

"People were calling their mates up and telling them to get down there," the Hull Daily Mail quoted a passer-by as saying.

 

After several hours the machine finally ran out of money.

 

Payzone, a company that administers ATMs, would not comment in detail on the incident but said it appeared one of its machines had malfunctioned.

 

Police said those who had benefited could face charges but only if the operator complained.

 

 

 

Hell ya I would call everyone I know if this happened to me. But alas I am not that lucky. Still funny. I wonder if anyone will be afraid of prosecution and turn in the extra money?

 

 

Source HERE

Edited March 23, 2008 by Jitway

[Shibathedog]

It's actually quite easy to hack ATMs to do this, A lot of them actually run windows and are connected to the banks weakly encrypted WiFi connection (Do'h!) although the method I have...ahem...heard of... work like this:

 

You switch the slots around, so the machine thinks the 100 dollar slot is the 50 dollar slot, the 50 dollar slot is the 20 dollar slot, and the 20 dollar slot is the 10 dollar slot.

 

So when you ask for 50 dollars, it spits out 100, you ask for 20, it spits out 50, you ask for 10, it spits out 20. Although not all banks let you withdraw only 10.

 

You would have to be pretty stupid to leave it that way after you left though. Oh and nothing else of importance is really accessible from the WiFi, so no you can't just add a billion dollars to your account (and they would notice that pretty damn quick, in any amount of money)