• Yap Yi San found a bank card left in the card slot of an automated-teller machine
• He decided to test his luck and cracked the PIN on his third try
• He withdrew a total of S$8,000 with that card
   

SINGAPORE — In April, he found a bank card left behind at a DBS bank automated-teller machine (ATM) in Toa Payoh. 

Testing his luck, Yap Yi San tried keying in “000000” as the personal identification number (PIN) but that turned out incorrect. Then, “999999” did not work. On his third attempt, he punched in “888888” — and got through. 

The 39-year-old storeman pocketed a total of S$8,000 that night from the bank account of Mr Goh Heng Yong, 46, the owner of the lost debit card, intending to use it to pay off his debts.

It was “sheer dumb luck”, his lawyer said — luck he now wishes he never had. 

When Mr Goh caught on to the unauthorised transactions, he alerted the police.

Yap pleaded guilty on Wednesday (Nov 18) to two counts of theft and one count of misappropriating the bank card. He was sentenced to nine weeks’ jail.

Two other similar charges were considered during sentencing.

He has returned the full S$8,000 to Mr Goh.

This was not Yap’s first run-in with the law. Last year, he was jailed eight weeks for stealing a mobile phone in 2018 from a warehouse where he previously worked. 

WHAT HAPPENED

The court heard that Mr Goh had forgotten to take his DBS debit card from the ATM at 222 Lorong 8 Toa Payoh after making a bank transfer at about 7.50pm on April 2.

Shortly after that, Yap approached the row of ATMs there and noticed one that was unused, so he went up to it, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Chng Luey Chi said.

He then heard a beeping sound from the machine and saw that Mr Goh’s card was still in the card slot. He took the card and kept it in his pocket while he made a withdrawal with his own ATM card.

Yap then walked over to another DBS ATM machine elsewhere in Toa Payoh, where he managed to successfully guess the pin number and saw that there was about S$18,000 in the account. He withdrew S$2,000 because there was a long queue behind him, DPP Chng said.

He repeated this thrice more that night, withdrawing a total of S$8,000 by about 10 minutes past midnight.

Around that time, Mr Goh noticed the unauthorised transactions while checking his bank account online and made a police report. 

Mr Marshall Lim, Yap’s lawyer, argued that there was little premeditation involved and that Yap had managed to access the bank account through sheer coincidence. 

He noted, too, that Yap had stopped after withdrawing S$8,000 even though there was more money in the account.

DPP Chng, however, argued that Yap had tried to crack the PIN not once, but three times, demonstrating a “sustained effort” in trying to access the bank account. 

District Judge Marvin Bay, in sentencing Yap, said that he was “mindful of the opportunistic nature” of the offence. It was “pure chance”, he said, that Yap had found the bank card at the ATM and that the PIN was so easily cracked.

“Given the universal use of ATM machines, it is important that the sentence serve as a sufficient deterrent to dissuade others who may be tempted to try their luck when they come across another person’s ATM card,” the judge said.

“Not to blame the victim, but perhaps it would be better if the victim had a less predictable PIN.”

For theft, Yap could have been jailed up to three years or fined, or both.

For dishonest misappropriation of property, he could have been jailed up to two years or fined, or both.