Vietnamese couple steals $660 from lost bank card with PIN written on it
Tuesday, June 26, 2018, 14:09 GMT+7
A local couple in central Vietnam has managed to withdraw nearly VND15 million ($660) from a lost bank card they had picked up on the street, which conveniently had the PIN written on it by a careless owner.
The two, based in the central city of Da Nang, however had a second thought and decided to return the money, plus their apologies, to its owner, after the case made headlines and their faces were clearly visible from CCTV footage of the ATM booth where they made the withdrawal.
The cardholder, Dang Ngoc Vy Uyen, said she had dropped the ATM card on her way to pick up someone at the airport on March 28.
The Da Nang resident didn’t realize she lost her card until she started receiving text messages from her bank about changes to her account balance, she recalled.
In total, five transactions were successfully made with the lost Agribank card at around 7:15 pm the same evening with the combined value of nearly VND15 million ($660).
Uyen admits having written the PIN on her card with the intention of asking her sister to withdraw money on her behalf.
However, she had lost the card before having a chance to give it to her sister.
A couple withdraws money from the bank card of Dang Ngoc Vy Uyen at an ATM machine in this footage provided by Agribank.
According to footage from a surveillance camera installed at an Agribank ATM machine, a middle-aged couple had used her card to perform the transactions.
The entire ordeal was finished within three minutes, and the duo left after having emptied Uyen’s account in five transactions, according to bank officials.
The case did not receive media attention until earlier this week, when a Facebook page run by Da Nang’s urban management authority posted about the mishap to warn citizens against writing their PIN on bank cards.
Luckily for Uyen, the couple who stole her money paid a surprise visit to her house on Tuesday morning, offered an apology and returned all the cash they had withdrawn from her account.
They admitted to having felt a sense of guilt ever since committing the act, but did not know how to find the victim, Uyen said.
After reading about the case on the news, they made up their mind to return the stolen money to its rightful owner, she added.
Uyen said she had decided to accept their apology and not to press charges against the two, as she was partly to blame for having been too careless with her property.
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