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Dumb Criminal Tries To Guess PIN 50 Times

What do you do when you are picked up in a cab and the driver suspects your home will be vacant while you are gone?

The Manchester Evening News reports “A BUNGLING burglar went to the same ATM more than 50 times – to try and guess the PIN numbers of bank cards he had stolen. He thought he might strike it lucky if he kept on putting in random sets of four numbers into the ATM machine. But, with the odds of correctly guessing a card’s PIN number ranked at one in 10,000, and he never managed to make a single withdrawal.”

Police believe the dumb criminal may have used his job as a taxi driver to pick out homes where he had picked people up and he would then return to at night and break into. He pleaded guilty to eight counts of burglary and was jailed for three years four months.

Whenever I’m picked up in a cab from my home I always get on the phone and fake or make a real call and say “Bill, can you make sure when I’m gone that the Dog stays in the house? He got out again and bit someone bad, there was blood everywhere, and please set the home alarm, and I’ll only be gone a short time this is just a shuttle”.

This puts enough doubt in the mind of the cabbie to choose my home as his next target.

 

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Comments: (2)

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 08 March, 2011, 09:42Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

That's funny.  But seriously, that's letting the bad guys get to you!  You put some doubt in the cabbie's mind, but you are just as likely to be burgled by regular thieves.

I have a driveway, and I own a spare car, so although I never get cabs (live in the country) there is always a car in the driveway when I leave.  CCTV is also a good deterrent, especially a webcam based one which is becoming more real these days - once captured, there is no tape machine or hard drive for the crook to take.

The ultimate deterrent - there's simply not that much to take!

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 10 March, 2011, 15:07Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

1 in 10,000?  Really?  I think most of the older generation are likely to use a memorable year - either that or they write it down on something normally stored with the card - sometimes even on the signature strip itself(!).  It would appear (clearly) that card fraud was not this particular individuals prowess - and they seem sadly lacking in common sense.

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