Suburban ATM dished out free money — until 'Good Samaritan' ruined the fun

By Sun-Times staff

A faulty ATM inside a Kmart in South suburban New Lenox mistakenly dished out $7,600 in cash to customers who hadn’t asked for it, according to the Daily Southtown.

But the glitch — a broken gear wheel inside the ATM that caused it to rain money on customers — was discovered in March when a Good Samaritan handed back $1,540 he hadn’t asked for.

An audit then revealed that three earlier transactions on the same day, made using untraceable MoneyPass debit cards, had snared $7,600 in unaccounted for cash, the paper reported:

There is no store video surveillance of the machine, nor surveillance equipment inside the machine itself to record the users, the police report said. … The ATM company employee reported the incident to the police June 9. [Police Deputy Chief Robert] Pawlisz said he did not know why there was a three-month delay. He said there was no reason to believe that the three untraceable debit cards are related to, or in any way caused the gear wheel to become faulty.

Still, taking money that isn’t yours from an ATM isn’t a good idea: in fact, it’s a federal crime that could land you behind bars.

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