Often acts of blatent stupidity result in tragic consequences. I will relate a tale of a stupid act which, through the honesty of others, had a happy ending.
Yesterday I left my debit card in the ATM machine at my credit union. I didn’t discover the missing card until this morning. As soon as they opened I called and found that someone had returned the card to the office. I nearly fainted with relief.
Whew.
right after cleaning you out?
I nearly fainted with relief.
Whew.
If you would have had a heart attack, would you be elligible for a Darwin award? 
'm glad it worked out for ya. I guess it could have been really bad eh?
Someone could have used your card to fill your account with lemon zest!
I thought ATMs generally suck the card back in if it’s not removed in a certain amount of time.
I could only hope it would result in my being a new Fark cliche.
That may be. I don’t know how long it would have waited. It was on the “Do you wish to make another transaction?” screen waiting for input. Anyone could have said, “Yes” and taken out all my dough.
If it makes you feel any better, they most likely could only have taken about $400-$500. Most ATM’s have limits on how much you can take out in one day for just that reason. Though that’s still a lot of money as far as I’m concerned, at least it’s not a life savings.
Ooops…and here I thought that this thread was somehow going to be about me. 
Glad you were the one who did it, Flydood, and not me. I would have fainted well before it was found.
I like the machines that make you take your card back first and then give out the money. Clearly anyone could leave a card in a machine—I don’t even think of it as stupid, just easy to do when thinking about a lot of other things. Life is so complicated. 
I once walked up to an ATM, just as the guy ahead of me in line was walking away, oblivious to the fact that the card was still in the ATM. The screen read “DO YOU DESIRE ANOTHER TRANSACTION?” This poor guy has no idea how lucky he was.
… heh… yeah, it could’ve been me standing behind him. 
I used to service the ATM machine at the bank where I was working. There would often be cards in the machine that the machine had captured for one reason or another. Some cards get a little worn or bent, and the ATM machine will capture it and not give it back. Also, some ATM’s are more sensitive than others in this regard. I was instructed to cut up any cards that were not cards from our bank. We made an effort to contact our customers when we found their cards. Banks also have some complicated rules about giving captured cards back to customers and non-customers. For cards captured by an ATM at another bank, the liklihood of your getting the card back, even if it was a bank mistake, is unlikely, because the bank does not know why the card was captured in the first place. The bank would not have informationa about your account with another bank, but the ATM is connected to that information. To avoid difficulty, my advice is to use ATM’s from a bank where you have an account whenever possible.
Don’t they ask you to re-enter your password if money had already been dispensed… just to avoid situations like this?