Police in London urge public to use different pins for gym and bank cards

Prolific criminals use the method of stealing locker codes which often turn out to be the same number as the pin for the victim’s bank card. Photograph: Stelios Varias/Reuters

Police have urged the public to use different pin codes at the gym after a prolific thief stole hundreds of pounds from a man he snooped on while entering a locker code that he also used for his bank card.

Last September Declan Murphy, 35, secretly watched the victim as he typed in a locker code at a luxury central London gym. After stealing the victim’s phone and bank card from the locker, Murphy then successfully guessed that the four-digit code on the card would be the same as the locker code.