Gold Coast crime: ATM operators at wits end after gum ATM bandit hits city

Gold Coast ATM operators are at their wits end with a man they allege is using a new trick which allows him to take money from machines across the city.

SOME Gold Coast ATM operators are at their wits end with a man they allege is using gum or blutack to block cash coming out of machines across the city.

An ATM operator who wished to remain anonymous said he had been forced to refund about $1000 so far to irate customers unable to retrieve cash from a single machine.

“He’s putting chewing gum up in the dispenser. The money doesn’t come out and he is walking up after and taking it out.

“It’s a nightmare. I don’t know how much he is picking up from each machine every week but he’s doing well out of it.”

ATM operators believe a man is putting gum or blutack into the machines to stop cash from coming out straight away.

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Another ATM operator John Connor is so frustrated he has posted up a CCTV photo of the alleged culprit beside his ATM in Nobby Beach warning people if they see the alleged ATM vandal.

“I probably shouldn’t have done it but I haven’t had a problem since,” Mr Connor said.

In some instances the alleged vandal is walking up after customers give up trying to retrieve their money and pocketing notes by reaching right into the back of the dispenser.

But in most cases the act of blocking the dispenser with gum just stops the machine working, operators say.

One operator with about 10 ATMs said he had multiple machines hit by the same man and while he hadn't had to refund any customers, the vandalism was taking his machines out of action for hours at a time.

Operators have told the Bulletin he appears to be employing the tactic across Surfers Paradise, Mermaid Beach and Nobby Beach.

A Surfers Paradise shopkeeper has separately provided what a Queensland Police Service spokeswoman described as “basic information regarding a possible fraud offence at an ATM in Surfers Paradise”.

No official complaint has been laid with police by the operators but the man with 10 machines said he was on the verge of laying an official complaint next time something happens to one of his machines.

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“If this guy is to do anything else to my machines I would formally lodge a police complaint.

“He’s not managing to pull money out of my machines, well not in most instances. He might be every now and then.

“But it’s more of a vandalism problem for me,” the operator said.

A business owner in Nobby Beach said he had noticed problems with an ATM — which is between Gemelli and Fire Cue restaurants — going back months with frustrated users unable to pay bills or getting angry when cash didn’t come out.

In one case a female “broke down saying it was the last money she had and it didn’t come out”, he told the Bulletin.

A police officer expressed surprise at the tactic, saying more common approaches to ATM rip-offs include using small cameras to capture people’s pins and card readers.

“I’ve never heard of something as simple as stopping the cash coming out.”