Recently a friend visited Shanghai and we spent some time shopping. During this activity, inevitably, one needs to visit the ATM machine once or twice. When she stopped to get some cash, the first machine we visited rejected her card. As she went to key in her PIN a third time, I stopped her. Sometimes a third wrong entry will swallow a card - or so I feared. We tried another machine with the same results.
That experience brought a quick end to our shopping adventure. Later, after she'd checked with her bank that no, her account was fully operational, she went out on her own and was successful at getting cash.
"You know what I realized?" my friend announced showing me her purchases from the evening shopping. "Sometimes the number boards are upside-down."
And since then, I've noticed, that yes, some ATMs have the 1-2-3 numbers on the bottom of the keypad; some have 7-8-9 on the bottom. Maybe this is the case everywhere in the world, but when you're traveling abroad and you're using your ATM, it's just nice to be aware of this possible situation.
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