A 39-year-old storeman has been sentenced to nine weeks' jail after picking up a bank card which was left behind at a DBS ATM machine in Toa Payoh.

He admitted to one count of dishonestly misappropriating the card and two counts of theft.

Accused took bank card left behind by previous ATM user

According to court documents, the incident happened on April 2 when the victim, 46-year-old man Goh Heng Yong forgot to take his bank card after making a bank transfer at an ATM machine at 222 Lorong 8 Toa Payoh.

When 39-year-old Yap Yi San went to that machine, he found the card in the card slot of the ATM machine.

He kept the card, went to another ATM machine at 500 Toa Payoh Lorong 6, and attempted to guess the PIN number.

Guessed the PIN number right on third attempt

On his third try, he managed to guess the PIN Number right which was a series of the number "8".

Yap then withdrew S$2,000 from the machine before going to another ATM machine to withdraw more money.

At 1:33am on April 3, Goh made a police report stating that he had forgotten to take his bank card after using it at the ATM machine. Prior to that, he had also found out that there were unauthorised transactions amounting to S$8,000.

On Nov. 18, Yap admitted to his offence in court and has made full restitution to Goh.

Yap was sentenced to nine weeks' jail eventually. The district judge said the sentence serves as a "sufficient deterrent" to dissuade others from committing similar offences, according to The Straits Times.

Totally unrelated but follow and listen to our podcast here

Top image by Roslan Rahman via Getty Images and via POSB website.