ATM gives shoppers double-money windfall

[24KT]

ATM gives shoppers double-money windfall
Thu Mar 20, 1:40 PM ET
 


LONDON (Reuters) - 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.

(Reporting by Luke Baker; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)

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Wow, I don't know how they're going to prosecute this. I mean, ...how do they prove it?

[ozman]

there was a petrol station over here that had its ATM refilled incorrectly

20's in the 50 slot and vice versa

so if you pressed $80 you would get $200

[Hedgehog]

I thought this thread was about something entirely different.

[Euro-monster]

I thought this thread was about something entirely different.

I know what you are saying because Jag started this thread and she always has something "sexy" to say....

[Pollux]

ATM gives shoppers double-money windfall
Thu Mar 20, 1:40 PM ET
 


LONDON (Reuters) - 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.

(Reporting by Luke Baker; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)

-----------------------

Wow, I don't know how they're going to prosecute this. I mean, ...how do they prove it?

Exactly! Especially when you have the receipt that says $300.

[240 is Back]

I thought this thread was about something entirely different.

LMAO... brilliant

[24KT]

These guys were lucky it happened in London. In China, ...it's a whole nother story.     

In China, ATM Glitch Gets Man Life Sentence

Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times
February 28, 2008

BEIJING — It seemed like a gift from heaven in a country where very little is free. When security guard Xu Ting went to an ATM in the southern city of Guangzhou on a Friday night in the spring of 2006 and withdrew $140, he noticed that it only deducted 14 cents from his account. Over the next eight hours, he made 170 more withdrawals, pocketing upward of $24,000.

During the next several months, he lost some of the money to a thief on a train, tried to start up a company that failed, and gambled most of the rest on thousands of lottery tickets that turned out to be losers. With little cash left, he got a job.

Then a routine police ID check led to his arrest.

Xu’s disappointment at how little the windfall had changed his life was nothing compared with what happened next. He was ordered imprisoned for life by a Chinese court late last year. The crime: bank robbery.

Xu’s case has attracted widespread attention in China, fanning public ire at the judiciary, the banking industry and corrupt officials who get away with far greater crimes than ordinary people who can’t get a break.

Fearful of the growing anger over perceived injustice and China’s widening rich-poor gap, the government late last week held a retrial for Xu, a rarity in a country where the state is presumed to always be right. A verdict could be announced as early as the end of the week.

For Xu’s father, the initial court decision suggests China’s laws have not kept up with societal changes or common sense, a view some legal experts share.

“My son is not a bad kid, but it’s such a money society,” said Xu Cailiang, his father. “I don’t know much about the law, but I think this sentence is totally unreasonable. Ninety percent of people in China would have taken the money.”

[Weez]

I know a chick who got away with that at a casino. She put a 20 in a slot machine, and it read it like it was a 100. She tried it again, and it worked, so instead of having $40...credits on the machine, she had 200. Well, needless to say that she didn't leave her machine, instead, she called her boyfriend on the cell, and said, "go to the bank(s), and get as many 20 dollar bills as you can get, and bring them down here". He did, and 1000 20's later, she had $100,000......and never got caught.