The owners of an ATM must beware of a scam that has been very fashionable in recent times and that completely empties the account.
Most Italians have a bank account where, on a monthly basis, one’s salary is paid directly to it without having to collect it at the bank.
Unlike before, now thanks to new technologies and online banking and all e-commerce services, most of the population of our Village tends to possess a ATM.
ATM: beware of the coin scam
For this reason, withdrawals of money from bank or post office branches have been reduced considerably as well as progressing over time and thanks to the use of payments directly with cards the use of cash seems to be less and less.
From the July 1for example, all merchants must allow their buyers to be able to pay even a minimal amount with the use of one credit card or a ATM if they so request.
The denial of this entails a very high fine on the part of the operator as there is an obligation that is also due to save time and reduce the circulation of current money.
Precisely for this reason, in the last year also the ATM which are fewer and fewer as fewer and fewer people go to withdraw cash as the use of ATM for almost all operations.
In this way, you not only avoid carrying large sums of money with you but you can also keep track of your movements and the remaining money in your account via the app.
However, innovation is not understood by the whole population and there are some seniors who cannot understand how certain apps and new technologies are used and therefore prefer to have cash with them.
Hence, they, as well as those who need to withdraw cash from ATM they are often subject to a scam called “the dime” because of the way it is implemented.
How the scam happens
The scam happens when someone approaches theATM to withdraw money, in this case in order to have cash the account holder will have to enter his own PIN and it is precisely at this moment that the scammers take action.
Usually they always act in two and position themselves behind the victim. One of them throws a coin or bill on the ground and asks the person who is withdrawing the money if the money on the ground is owned by him.
If the victim goes down to take the cash on the floor or takes a look, he does not notice that the other scammer after having seen his code PIN replaces the valid card with a similar one that is actually unusable.
In this way the two scammers are able to remove the ATM and to get hold of the code to be able to withdraw further money and subsequently moving away they go to a ATM further away to withdraw the sums of money allowed until the account is drained.
Only later, when there is no more money in the card and before it is blocked they throw it away so that they cannot be traced through the list of movements.
Therefore, you must always be very careful when withdrawing cash from a ATM and watch out for anyone who comes near us and covers the keys when we type our code PIN as well as not getting distracted during the operation.
Only in this way will the scammers find it difficult to implement their strategy and will be forced to give up their plan and thus give up the scam.
