Don’t Use Your ATM Card During A Bank Robbery Unless You Want To Get Caught

There are crimes that stymy, mystify, and otherwise confound veteran detectives for decades. And then there the crimes that are almost too easy to solve, thanks to the overly helpful, not quite so bright criminals that commit them. Like the would-be bank robber in San Diego who demanded money from a bank teller, but not until after he’d swiped his ATM card, providing the bank with everything needed to identify him.

The 56-year-old California man was sentenced in federal court Tuesday to three years and 10 months in prison for the robbery, the U.S. attorney’s office said (via the Los Angeles Times).

According to the plea agreement, in May 2016 the man approached a teller at a downtown San Diego Wells Fargo branch and swiped his debit card in the card reader. His bank profile popped up on the teller’s screen, perhaps unbeknownst to him, and the teller asked what services he wanted.

He then told the teller — verbally and through a written note — that she was “being robbed” and warned her to not “make a mistake.”

He took $565 and fled. But based on the personal information from his customer profile, which he so helpfully provided, FBI agents and the local police established surveillance around his home and ultimately arrested him.

His good banking habits have earned himself a spot in Consumerist’s “You Have Only Yourself To Blame” Hall of Fame, where he has plenty of company:

1. The would-be robber who had to be rescued by firefighters after tried to crawl through a pizzeria’s ventilation duct to steal and got stuck.

2. The bank robbery suspect who was caught by police when he stopped for lunch at a casino.

3. The KFC worker who pulled a gun on his boss and returned for a paycheck the next day.

4. Suspected thieves who police said tried to sell a pawn shop owner his own stuff back, unaware that they’d purloined it from him in the first place.

5. A guy who police overhead planning a burglary after he unwittingly butt-dialed 9-1-1.

6. The burglary suspect who made things pretty easy by falling through the store’s ceiling… in front of cops.

7. A man who was freed after 15 years in prison for robbery who was accused of heading straight back there to rob it again.

8. The students who were arrested after allegedly stealing a $7,500 Ronald McDonald figure and then completing their drive-thru order.

9. A guy who was found sleeping in his car at a McDonald’s drive-thru who was charged with DUI after he tried to pay cops for his burgers.

10. The burglary suspect who broke into a restaurant and was caught after he tried to cook himself up some tasty crab cakes.

11. A man accused of burgling a fried chicken restaurant who found himself in handcuffs when he returned to the eatery the next day — and wearing the same clothes, no less.

12. The guy found snoozing at a Wendy’s drive-thru who woke up to a DUI and no fries.

13. The father-daughter duo accused of going on a burglary spree who were nabbed after she posted a doctored Microsoft employee badge on Facebook.

14. The criminal mastermind whose brilliantly plotted heist was undone after he returned to the scene to grab a remote control for the sound system he allegedly stole 30 minutes before.

15. A real-life Hamburglar accused of robbing a McDonald’s who was caught when he crashed into the local mayor.

16. Yet another snoozer, this time, a guy police found asleep in the McDonald’s drive-thru who was charged with driving while intoxicated after scoring a blood alcohol content of 0.14%.

17. The guy accused of breaking into Walmart and trying to saw through the ceiling of the store’s cash room while an employee was present.

18. The blabby teen who bragged online about pulling off a bank robbery. He apparently thought no one watches YouTube.

19. A would-be Walmart robber who was unfortunate to get hit by his own getaway vehicle.

20. The timid bank robber who scared himself silly by shooting his gun, and ended up fleeing without cash.

21. An accused robber of storage units who left behind a pizza box with his address on it.

22. The accused thief who made the rookie mistake of uploading pics from a stolen iPad to the cloud.

23. Speaking of uploading things, there was the time when a Disney cruise worker accused of stealing an iPhone unwittingly sent photos to the cloud of his adventures with the pilfered device.

24. The guy who reported the theft of an iPhone he’d just stolen from someone else to the police.

25. A very sleepy man who allegedly broke into a bar and then took a nice nap on the kitchen table.