WebProNews

Tag: south portland maine

  • Homeless Man Gets $37K From ATM Malfunction

    On Thursday morning, an ATM at a TD Bank branch in South Portland, Maine, spit out more than $37,000 to a homeless man, a police official confirmed.

    Officers were called to the bank at 1:00 am on Thursday, according to Lt. Todd Bernard of the South Portland Police Department.

    “We got a call that he was sleeping in the [ATM] vestibule, and we had to move him along,” Bernard said. “Then at around 5:30 am, we got another call that he was back there and taking an unusually long time at the ATM by a woman who was trying to use it. She thought it seemed suspicious.”

    The second time police arrived at the branch they found the man filling a shopping bag with cash. Officers said he had more than $37,000 in cash in that bag.

    Bernard said the man, who will not be identified unless charges are filed against him, had an ATM card and about $100 in his account. But he was using the “cash advance” feature on the machine and repeatedly requesting $700.

    The ATM obliged the man approximately 53 times before police stopped him. Bernard said the cash advance option on an ATM is for people who have a pre-approved line of credit, which the homeless man did not have. However, a “code error” allowed the transactions to proceed, according to a bank official.

    Police officers returned the money to the bank.

    “It is illegal. He is taking money that doesn’t belong to him, and the bank at this point has elected not to prosecute, although the case is still under investigation,” Bernard said. “That ATM has been taken out of service and is being checked out to determine why it malfunctioned.”

    The man was removed from the scene, and Barnard said the man has been in South Portland “for some time now,” even though he carries a Utah ID.

    Image via YouTube

  • ATM $37,000: A Man’s Get Rich & Lose it Quick Scheme

    A Maine news website tells us how a homeless man in South Portland, Maine– with an ATM card and 140 dollars in his account –somehow found a way to make a quick profit and had his hands on $37,000 all for five minutes.

    As he maneuvered the ATM to do his bidding, the woman waiting behind him got impatient suspicious and called the police. As the police rolled up, he was seen shoveling copious amounts of greenbacks into a shopping bag in sure efforts not to look completely like a bank robber.

    The unnamed man started with withdrawing $140, which he apparently actually did have in his account– but something signaled him to keep going. And keep going he did until he reached up to $37,000. There is a possibility that he might have gotten more if the lady behind him was not so impatient that she called the police about his dawdling.

    The bank, for obvious reasons, will not detail what made this glitch occur and the machine was put down all day Friday. They did not press charges on the man, although it was pretty obvious that a little finagling was used to receive the large amount of funds. The police have also divulged that they have dealt with this man before, but they decided to just promptly return the money and leave it at that.

    A bank ATM can hold up to $200,000. It makes one wonder if the kinda-a-bank robber-but-not guy knew this and was banking on signing a new lease on life that early Thursday morning.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons