Yeah, I can imagine that by perpetuating this urban legend this "friend" is gaining access to gullible peoples PIN's by observing which numbers they use while holding them up and later reversing them after stealing their card.

And why exactly would the robber be trying to help the people they're robbing?

It isn't actually helping if it doesn't work in the first place, #9. That's the point of both this FML and what #8 was saying.

His friend might actually be right. Before an atm asks for your pin # you have to swipe your card first. At that point it's only looking for one pin # and not all of the ones in its database. I dont know how it's work if it was 1221 or something though or why his "friend" got so upset.

I work for a bank. I can promise you it's not true. Not that it takes a bank employee to understand it's not true, just a little common sense.....

I have a friend who works IT security for a bank, I asked her, it doesn't work, although it would be a good idea if it could be programmed properly somehow

With friends like that, who needs enemies?!?

EMV technician here, confirming it DOESN'T work. But not for the reason stated (We could just not issue cards with palindrome PINs, since they are generated at the bank.) The reason is that neither the card nor the ATM know your PIN. (what they know is called a "hash" of the PIN and is basically a piece of knowledge that is easy to get from a PIN but hard to get a PIN from. A comparable example would be knowing the second and fifth letter of your password. It's easy to see if "Zebra" has the letters E and A there, but it's hard to think of a word with H and T there off the top of your head.) [BTW the answer is (replacing the letters with their number in the alphabet, in case you want to try guessing) 19-8-9-18-20 ]

story of my life

Friends like that are hard to pin down.

Good sir you need more thumbs up.

Not at first, anyway. They'll be pissed off at first, certainly, but after they've mulled it over a few days, it starts sinking in. This, however, is an example of a poster child for anger management classes.

i disagree. if people say stupid things that are obviously false, the only way to correct it is to tell them, otherwise we will forever live in a dumb society. knowledge is key

Sorry, but correcting people won't make society any smarter. You could correct someone's grammar, but they're still going to make the same mistake over and over again. plus, if they're not open to learning, then correcting them becomes a waste of time.

No, always correct these kinds of idiots with a snopes link. If people actually believe this urban legend they could end up hurt. Don't let people spread misinformation.

If people show a pattern of never learning, or at least being grateful for the help, they're not worth the time, in my opinion. there are plenty of people willing to learn, why waste time on the ones who aren't willing?

Don't know why this got downvoted. It's absolutely true.

Why is he your friend?"

Dude, her sentence made sense.

45, I totally agree I think it made sense as well. But what 31 is trying to say is that she said they instead of he. It made it sound like she is talking about more than one friend, when the OP was only talking about one friend. I just think 31 was being a grammar nazi about it.

No, it just made it sound like she didn't know the gender of OP's friend. 'They' is perfectly acceptable to use in reference to one person if you're not sure which gendered pronoun to use. Which means if 31 was trying to be a grammar Nazi about it, /they/ are an incredibly bad one. You need to actually understand proper grammar before you can go around trying to correct other people...

"He drove over and beat the crap out of me. FML" "He drove" "He" There is no need for "they".

Because OP is a masochist.

67, like 71 said it mentioned he is at the end of OP's FML. You need to take the time to slow down and read the full sentence before correcting someone on their grammar.

#67, actually, using they IS WRONG. People use "they" to be politically correct, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a grammatical error. SAT books, grammar books will tell you that using "they" because you don't know the gender is wrong. You assume either male or female. In this case, it was a male from the fml. Before trying to contradict me, go look it up in an actual grammar book.

As an English major, I'm gonna tell you that NO ONE CARES about your precious SAT books or what they say about using "they" properly. Also, lots of people like using "they" as their gender pronouns, and I'd much rather respect their wishes than go by some ridiculous grammar book.

I'd check his wardrobe first. He might Chris Brown her if he owns a lot of wife beaters.

Ok, an adult woman then. He hits her, oh boy…