Thief finds PIN number as easy as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

A thief hit the jackpot when he found a bank card left in a cashpoint machine, inserted it, tapped in the numbers 123456 and found he had keyed in the correct PIN number.

The lucky guess - at the thief's first attempt - enabled 34-year-old museum worker Andrew Kong Chun-wa to siphon a total of $126,900 from his victim's account over a two-day period, Tsuen Wan Magistrates Court heard.

Kong had pleaded guilty to 17 counts of theft and seven counts of attempted theft, which occurred on April 9 and 10 this year. He was jailed for eight years yesterday.

The court heard Kong went to the cashpoint machine outside the HSBC bank in Mui Wo, Lantau, on April 9 at about 3.30pm and discovered a bank card had been left in the machine. Kong reinserted the card and pressed 123456, which proved to be correct. He then used the card to withdraw the maximum $20,000.

Realising that he would be unable to withdraw more money, he used the card to transfer between $300 and $500 a time from the victim's account on to 174 Octopus cards.

Shortly after midnight on April 10, when the daily allowable cash withdrawal limit returned to $20,000, Kong withdrew the maximum sum again at Kowloon Tong MTR station. He later attempted to transfer money on to two Octopus cards but the stolen card had been frozen by the HSBC. His card had been used fraudulently on 256 occasions.