An ATM trick to be aware of

The San Francisco Examiner reports on a simple ploy designed to trap the unwary:

The thieves glue down the “enter,” “cancel” and “clear” buttons on the keypad and wait until the customer goes into the bank for help before withdrawing money from their account.

The robbed customers have already punched in their PINs when they realize the keypad buttons are stuck. The unwitting customers either do not know that they can use the ATM touchscreen to finish their transaction, or become nervous when the keypad isn’t working and react by leaving the ATM unattended...

There are several nonviolent ways crooks can steal cash from ATMs, but the glue method is less risky, Corriea said. A thief caught applying glue to an ATM would be slapped with a misdemeanor vandalism charge, but likely won’t face a felony fraud charge because it isn’t easy to prove that the crook intended to steal...

More details (and other ATM tricks) here.