Area lawmaker wants to stiffen ATM robbery, damage penalties

State Rep. Rick Francis of Perryville, Missouri, (R-145) has introduced a bill in the General Assembly to make it a felony to tamper with an automated teller machine — either by successfully robbing an ATM or damaging it.

Rick Francis

"The increase in ATM smash-and-grabs in Missouri is 950% in the last two years," said Francis, who is the chairman of the House Committee on Financial Institutions. It is through Francis's panel that all proposed new banking bills pass in the legislature's lower chamber.

A hearing on Francis's bill, House Bill 2127, was held Wednesday in Jefferson City.

"We had two smash-and-grabs in 2019 in the state, but last year, we had 21. One was in Fredericktown, in my own district," he said.

Francis said the current state statute classifies thievery from or damage to an ATM as simple theft and destruction of property.

Francis, who was first elected in 2016, wants the penalty ratcheted up.

The lawmaker's bill calls for two felony categories of ATM crime.

A Wood & Huston Bank interactive teller machine (ITM) is situated in the parking lot of Cape Girardeau's Ace Hardware store, 1719 N. Kingshighway.Jeff Long

• A person convicted of stealing from an ATM would get three to 10 years in prison, plus a fine of $10,000 or twice the amount of the cash grab. (Class C felony)
• A person convicted of damaging an ATM and rendering it inoperable faces a sentence of no more than seven years, although a judge would have discretion to give the offender probation. (Class D felony)

Migration

"They were having these ATM crimes in Texas and the legislature there installed more substantive penalties. In reaction, the thieves moved into Arkansas. Arkansas then toughened its laws, too, and I've looked at all those statutes and I'm trying to implement something similar here," said Francis, who added he is unaware of any prior legislation aimed specifically at protecting ATMs in the Show Me State.

"The perpetrators are stealing a truck, sometimes a tow truck, and use it to smash into storefronts or wherever the ATMs are," Francis said. "They hook onto them and yank them off the bank wall or out of the concrete with a chain (and) it only takes two to three minutes. They do that, and zip — they're out in the countryside, where they cut into these machines and take the money."

Bank reaction

• Phil Moore, market executive since 2017 for Banterra Bank in Cape Girardeau and East Prairie, Missouri, said he was pleased to hear about Francis's bill.

"It's very warranted because we're talking, basically, about robbery and ATMs hold a fairly significant amount of cash," said Moore, a Cape Girardeau Central graduate.

"It's not just stealing the money and losing the revenue but damaging the equipment a bank has invested in to serve customers," he added, noting "next gen" ATMs, called ITMs — an acronym standing for interactive teller machines — are very expensive.

"With ITMs, you can easily start talking $90,000 to $100,000 for a bank just to purchase a unit," Moore explained.

An ITM, unlike a standard ATM, is linked through the internet and uses a video screen showing a live teller.

"You pull up, the screen comes on and you're actually talking — or interacting — with someone who can control the operations of the machines," said Moore, who explained the banks under his jurisdiction don't currently have ITMs but Banterra banks in other locations do have them installed.

• Clint Karnes, market president of Wood & Huston Bank in Cape Girardeau and Jackson for the last 16 years, does have ITMs in each city, plus a third, free-standing, machine on North Kingshighway in the parking lot of Cape Girardeau's Ace Hardware store.

Like his banking colleague Moore, Karnes said he is also glad to hear of Francis's legislation.

"I think the stronger penalty the better," said Karnes, a native of Southern Illinois. "These machines are expensive and have an increasingly high presence for our customers, giving them access to their money on their schedule. These are all stand-alone pieces of equipment and are very vulnerable."

Moore suggested cash-dispensing machines found inside outlets specializing in sales at the gas pump may be at highest risk.

"You do see these smaller, free standing ATMs in convenience stores and these are the ones, I think, most tempting for smash-and-grabs. Even they have alarm systems and police are summoned pretty quickly," he said.

ATM history

Automated teller machines have been around in the U.S. at least since 1969, when the first cash dispenser was unveiled to the public on Long Island, New York, in the wealthy enclave of Rockville Center.

ATMs have become ubiquitous in the past half century even as cashless payment options such as PayPal, Venmo and Apple Pay gain in popularity.

According to National Cash Register, there are 3.2 million ATMs installed worldwide and they remain "the most used method for consumers to interact physically with their bank."

Moore offered a postscript.

"Banks deal with so much theft, fraud and loss that people don't realize," he said.

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