Man Stole DBS ATM Card, Tried Using PIN of 888888 & It Worked

Everyone knows the importance of a strong password.

It prevents hackers from stealing the strange photos you have of you and your teddy bear Billie. 

This is why I recently changed my password from password to Password. (No hacker can predict the capitalisation of the “P”.)

Similarly, it’s important to have a strong personal identification number (PIN) for your ATM card that’s difficult to crack.

You might think “123456” is the worst possible PIN, but there might be one that’s even weaker.

Man Stole DBS ATM Card, Tried Using PIN of 888888 & It Worked

A man who found a lost ATM card managed to guess its PIN and ended up withdrawing $8,000.

39-year-old Yap Yi San was sentenced to 9 weeks’ jail on Wednesday (18 Nov) after pleading guilty to one count of dishonest misappropriation and two counts of theft.

Another two similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

It all started with an unclaimed card at an ATM.

On 2 April this year, at about 7.50pm, the 46-year-old victim used his bank card at a DBS ATM along Lorong 8 Toa Payoh.

According to Yahoo Singapore, the man made a bank transfer but forgot to retrieve his card after the transaction was complete.

Not long after, Yap was about to use the same machine when he noticed a beeping sound. He discovered that the previous user had left their bank card in the card slot and took it out.

He had two options at this point:

1. Hand it over to the police
2. Hand it over to the police

Yes, there was really only one option, but Yap did something else instead.

After keeping the lost bank card in his pocket, Yap used the ATM with his own card before leaving.

Then, at around 8.05pm, Yap walked over to another ATM in Toa Payoh so he could use the stolen bank card.

The only obstacle was that he had three tries to guess the victim’s PIN.

This is impossible right? Surely no one can guess a stranger’s PIN in three tries.

Unless your PIN is 888888, of course. 

After failing on his first two tries, Yap decided to try “888888” for his last try, and it worked. 

The 39-year-old found that the victim had had $18,000 in his bank account. But he only withdrew $2,000 at first as there was a long queue behind him.

Being a criminal is fine, but being inconsiderate is just unacceptable.

So he headed to another ATM on the same day as well as the following day, withdrawing a total of $8,000.

Soon after, the victim discovered that there were a few unauthorised transactions made through his account, and lodged a police report.

Imprisoned Last Year For Stealing Handphone

In court, Yap’s lawyer pointed out that his client’s crime was opportunistic and that the period of offending was only about four hours.

Yap was sentenced to nine weeks in jail, a period which should serve as a sufficient deterrent, the judge said.

Last year, Yap was imprisoned for stealing a handphone from a warehouse he worked at.

The 39-year-old could have faced up to three years in jail for theft and two years for dishonest misappropriation of property.

He has since made full restitution to the victim.

Creating Strong PINs

The first rule of coming up with a PIN is never to use “123456”.

Now, the second rule is to never use “888888”.

Your birth date, wedding anniversary, phone number, or home address might seem like obvious choices because they’re easy to remember, but because this information may be stolen by someone else, your PIN may easily be cracked.

One technique is to create a PIN that can be translated into a word, using your phone’s keypad (eg. animal = 264625).

Also, remember to set different PINs for all your cards, just in case a thief manages to get their hands on all of them.

Featured Image: TY Lim / Shutterstock.com