To pascal Monett-

Default passcodes DID work because people are lazy and don't want to hassle with so many passcodes. I remeber hearing about this a year ago too. I think InQ covered that too. It hit a few of the news sites as a good laugh at stupid techs who forgot to change the passcode.

People are dumb, stupid and lazy. Why are you surprised at this fact?

Okay, they are criminals and have obviously watched Terminator II a bit too often, but come on - default passwords ?
Some tech guy should be laid off, or his manager if there were no instruction to change the passwords.
Nobody ever leaves default codes in a machine that accessible to the public by any means. That is basic and obvious.

I enter the passcode, I then make a withdrawal, at end of business there is an error with the amount of money the machine thinks it has.

I do this again, and I leave my calling card, the fact I was one of the customers who made a withdrawal.

After doing this to 4 or 5 machines times surely I will be the only person in that group of suspects.

It sounds like a crime that can only be committed a very limited number of times, because of the trail left behind.

And if someone travelled to a lot of different machines which just happened to have been hit with the dodgy code, then you would need a good reason for why you travelled there. A reason a jury would believe.

If this got mainstream coverage, then it would be funny and possible to get away with because so many people would be doing it. It just seems to me that very soon the police will catch up with the criminal doing this.

Only way I can think of to beat this is to have a fake account, make a deposit and then run around looking for cash machines which don't have video surveillance.

Just playing at being Columbo and the bad guy!