I recently received a forwarded email that has been circling the net for quite some time. The premise of the email is that if you are ever forced to withdraw money from an ATM by a thief you could enter your PIN in reverse order to summon the police. While such an idea has repeatedly been proposed, it hasn’t actually made its way into ATMs.

You can imagine the value of such a system. It would have marginal added cost, would allow transactions to continue, and offer the hope of rescue for victims. The main drawbacks often cited are that:

• People would have a hard time reversing their PIN under normal circumstances, let alone while they are being robbed.
• A delay or mistake in entering the PIN may increase the risk for the victim
• Police would arrive too late to help the victim

An alternative implementation would be to have a panic PIN associated with you account that wouldn’t be linked to your normal PIN. Choosing something easy to remember would make the secondary PIN more valuable. While you generally want a PIN that’s hard to guess, the fact that the police would be alerted by its use might make an easy to remember panic PIN less likely to be abused.

Another method would be allow panic PINs to be something like the first four digits of your normal PIN followed by 911. Of course, thieves might watch to ensure you weren’t using such a code.

The general advice typically offered to those being burglarized is to simply give the thief whatever they want. Money and possessions can be replaced and are worth giving up rather than putting your life at risk by trying to thwart the thief by alerting authorities or refusing to comply with the thief’s demands. Until an easy to use ATM panic system is in place, giving up your money may be the safest bet.