Profiler showing a civilian with a rich bank account after hacking.
Bank Account Theft is an ability of the Profiler. Both Aiden and Marcus can utilize this ability to wire money from pedestrians' bank accounts to theirs. The ability varies between both games.
Usage[]
Watch Dogs[]
In Watch Dogs, when locked on to a pedestrian with the profiler, Aiden can view the person's information such as name, occupation, income, and a piece of random personal info. The income is the main focus in bank account theft, which indicates the target's overall earnings. However, this does not necessarily affect payout; some civilians have "rich bank accounts", which give significantly higher rewards. Such people can be quickly located with the Profiler Optimization skill.
Aiden can hack to acquire that target's bank account with a push of the action button. Once the information is acquired, the player can leech money from that person's account by hacking an ATM.
Watch Dogs 2[]
Bank account theft has been somewhat overhauled in Watch Dogs 2 and is simplified. The function works the same for the most part; Marcus can lock onto a random pedestrian and select the option to wire money from the victim's account. However, this time, Marcus will automatically have the money wired to his account, meaning there is no need to hack an ATM. For the most part, pedestrians will get a notification of their bank account being hacked, and will react angrily, but will never suspect Marcus of doing it.
Like in the original Watch Dogs, the player can upgrade their hacking skill to find "rich bank accounts". However, a rich bank account doesn't always correlate to a person's income; a person of a lower income bracket may have a bank account with a lot of money, whereas a person of high income may not have nearly as much in their bank account.
Trivia[]
- The Palace Pack adds the ATM Hack Boost ability, which increases the amount of funds acquired through bank account theft.
- It should be noted no money as actually stolen in Watch Dogs until retrieved from the ATM; if Aiden dies, the player will lose the money hacked unless they took the money from the ATM beforehand.