News

The strangest kinds of kindness occur at ATMs

March 20, 2019

A pair of news stories have gone viral in recent days, both featuring ATM transactions under, let's say, somewhat unusual circumstances.

In Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England, a patron of Harry's Bar and Restaurant apparently entrusted his bankcard and PIN to a homeless man who had asked him for money, according to a report at the online news site of Media Entertainment Arts WorldWide. 

A few minutes later, the homeless man returned to Harry's Bar with his benefactor's card and ATM receipt and a 20 pound banknotes in an exchange recorded by a bystander on his mobile phone and later posted to Facebook.

Commenters alternately credited the Harry's Bar patron for his trusting and generous nature, and questioned his mental fitness for giving up both his ATM card and his PIN.

In an incident in China, a man brandishing a knife approached a woman inside an ATM vestibule in the city of Heyuan as she completed a withdrawal of 2,500 yuan ($372).

In an exchange captured by a CCTV camera at the ATM, the frightened woman hands over the money, Then, according to a report by The Independent Singapore, the robber asks to see her remaining bank balance, which, as it happened, was nil.

The thief hands the money back to the woman. "He was actually smiling when he returned the money to her," the report said.

Nevertheless, he was arrested. However, he later received surprising support in social media posts for being "a robber with a conscience."