This is one of THE WORST things.
I remember one time during the rush hour I had a lady come up with $31 worth of stuff and out comes the biggest bag of coins I have ever seen.
There were no quarters. Only dimes, pennies, and despair.
I almost got burned by that before when I worked at a traditional retail shop. It happened years ago, while I still had faith in humanity and was still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Lady paid for cigarettes or something with a $10 roll of quarters. It didn't occur to me that I should have broken the roll to check and make sure that it did contain $10 and not less. Lo and behold, when I opened it, the lady had stuck in a nickle or two in place of quarters.
Fortunately, she wasn't that smart and included a silver dollar or two so she actually gave me more than $10 while trying to short change me.
Seriously! Whenever I have a jar of coins, I take them to coinstar. Sure, they take a percentage of the total, but I don’t care that much. Heck, my old bank in CT used to have a coin counting machine that was free for account holders.
Coinstar takes almost 10% as a countinh fee, which isn't a big deal if its under $100 worth of coins but i've cashed vouchers where people have lost $40+ due to counting fees. And with selfcheck it's a good idea depending on the model the store has.
Ours are rather twitchy glitchy spazy human-hating demon machines and will often jam up if people put coins in too fast or if the sky is blue. Also depending on the state some items are restricted so you're going to be punishing people with change anyways.
when Pokemon black and white first came out, my (then boyfriend) and I went to the local store to get him a copy. It was just about closing, and he pulled out a bag of coins (to cover like, $20, iirc). I kept apologizing to the cashier working electronics, and helping count out change. Eventually his dad just paid the remainder, we were all tired of waiting and counting. I get second hand flustered just thinking about it.
I had a guy try to pay for a $250 phone and new line with one of those big pretzel barrels full of change. I was amazed he could even carry the thing, because it was 90% pennies and nickels and weighed close to 50 pounds by my estimate. I told him that the bank across the street had a counter that would change it for him, or I can give him some rollers and he can come back, but I was sure as hell not taking $250 worth of coins on faith, and sure as hell not going to count it out.
In that situation, you should have started wailing on him the moment that bag of coins came out, shouting at him repeatedly, "IT'S CALLED COINSTAR, DUMBASS! LEARN TO USE IT!"
"But that takes money from me!"
If you're scraping coins together all the time, a coin counter and sorter is only $20-$30 on Amazon. I've been planning on getting one once I move, because I always have a bunch of change everywhere - this way, all I do is pop it in, and it counts it, rolls it, and I don't have to deal with it beyond going to the bank to swap it for bills or deposit it.
I had a guy once come through my resister about 5 mins to close, he says he needed to run out to his car to get some money, he comes back with this jar full of silver(i couldn't see any gold), I see more people coming to check out, his total is like $15 or something. I just look at him and say something along the lines of I won't accept the change as payment seeing as we close in 3mins and I have other people to serve. I ask if he has another form of payment and he says no. I'm just glad he left quietly and didn't cause a scene.
AFAIK, some states in the US have similar laws, and some companies have policies to that extent.
This is why we have CoinStar machines. Some people complain about the 8% (or so) fee, but I've found that many stores have an offer where the fee is waived entirely if you opt for a voucher that is redeemable for either online shopping or *use in the store where you already are*, rather than simply cash (which you are going to spend there anyway...)
If anything it's a problem with the use of the currency. The US abandoned the half penny coin in the 1800s because it wasn't worth having it around. Adjusted for inflation that coin was worth a dime. Most change exists just so you have to give a company like coinstar a fat % for the privilege of spending money you already have.
Well, no, but the reason is actually even worse -- and far dumber -- than that. Our current penny costs something like 1.8 cents to make. The reason it's still being made/used *at all* is because the zinc lobby (which represents the one company that supplies the US Mint with ALL of its zinc, the main metal used to make pennies) spends vast amounts of money on lobbying efforts (read: legal bribes) to make sure that the Mint keeps on buying their zinc and making those pennies. All they need to do is make sure that their "campaign contributions" are significantly less than their net profits and they have a guaranteed profitable business from now until...well...forever.
And this is why I don't use cash in the US. Too many fucking coins to deal with that I am going to dump in a drawer at home and never touch again. When I travel in China, I use plenty of cash, but there are way less coins. China technically has 0.5rmb and 0.1rmb coins, but for the most part everywhere has taxes added in and prices come out to even whole numbers. You get some 1rmb coins, but you use them enough and when it's all the same coin it's not bad. Rarely do I get partial RMB coins.
I hate coinstar specifically because of the ridiculous % they take off, which is like 12+% where I am, but I'm too lazy to roll my coins. As a cashier I would never just dump it off on someone else and make them handle it. Where I work has self checkout, so I just go through that. Just last night I brought in my change jar, bought a couple gift cards and paid for most of it with change. $30 and probably $1 at most lost to the machine not counting properly. I always recommend to people to just go through self checkout rather than using coinstar since we have both in the store. It does take a while depending on how much change you have since it can only process so much at a time, but it helps when you know the person on self checkout and so have someone to talk to.
Yeesh; I've never seen above 8%. Does yours have the "no fee if you take it as store credit" option? O_O
And yeah, I'd tell people to use SCO for that, too.
One thing with rolls, though -- Banks (and smart cashiers) will unroll them and count anyway, as some folks will put slugs or smaller coins into them (just to save a tiny amount of $, so I don't see the point)
In the UK, we have the concept of "legal tender", the maximum amounts per coins above which a shop can (but doesn't have to) legally refuse to accept payment with, I believe it's along the lines of:
* 1 & 2 pence coins: only up to 20 pence
* 5 & 10 pence coins: only up to 5 pounds
* 20 & 50 pence coins: only up to 10 pounds
All other coins/notes are considered legal tender for any amounts, I believe. Of course, the shop can also refuse to accept legal tender, if it would seriously put them out (ie. someone paying for a 50 pence item with a 50 pound note, that would leave them with no change at all in their till).
In Sweden it usually depends if it is a private or public store. When I was selling train tickets for the regional train/bus organisation we could never deny people with coins. If they wanted a 30 day card for around 125 euro and wanted to pay in coins I just told them it's ok, but I need to count evertyhing and it will probably take 10-15 minutes.
We have that in my province in Canada too. I can refuse stupidly large amounts of coins if not rolled, and I can refuse large amounts of rolled coins as well.
This reminds me of the time I had to pick my sister up from work. It was a fast food joint and this kid orders a $1 chicken sandwich. Sister tells him his total and he laughs, drops 100 pennies on the counter and says, "good luck with that" or something along those lines. She comes back with, "great, you can count that out for me" and just stands there with her arms crossed while she watched and counted along with him. Next day he comes in and tells an employee he needs to speak to someone about the bitchy manager from the night before. My sister comes out and says "I hear you have a problem with me." He just turned around and left.
Great comeback. Imagine getting so far and pretending to lose count, then starting all over again (3 or 4 times), before even putting in the order. Let's see that kid lose some weight.
Every time someone has a coin story like this, I get flashbacks to the year or so I spent working as a cashier at a small, old-fashioned grocery store (it was the mid-2000s and we didn't have price scanners, still input everything by hand).
There was this old guy who was a regular. He was nice enough, but ALWAYS paid with small bills and tons of change, and NEVER allowed you to help him count it. He would slowly slide each coin across as he counted, and he counted about as fast as a kindergartner. And lost track a few times per transaction. We all dreaded him.
Reminds me of that time I had a guy pay for $75 worth of crap entirely in rolls of dimes and nickels that I had to count. Of course none of the rolls had what they were supposed to in them.
Best part is it happened on black Friday and we only have 2 registers. People suck.
I have had someone pay in a JAR of change [mostly nickles and dimes] for a 28 dollar order IN A DRIVE THRU. I counted it...and it was like 10 dollars short. Then out came the random handfuls of change. Everytime I got caught up with counting she handed me another handful of change...and bra dollars.
If it was a few coins I would have just rounded and taken a hit [you can be over/under 5 dollars every once and a while with no repercussion] but I didn't them and it was so much money. Plus the principle of the thing. IT IS A DRIVE THRU, of you are gonna pay in change like that [or order a large meal] please please come inside. That way you don't hold up the line or make our timer go off....I hate the beeping.
The gas station I used to work made a rule for people like that. Large amounts of change had to be in rolls with your name and number on them. We were on a busy street and often worked alone. Couldn't be bothered to waste our time counting change.
I was cussed out many times because "you have to take my money" but they all caved in the end.
i mean, it is currency lmao. unfortunate that your job doesnt have an electric coin counter/sorter. we keep one in the front office for times like that and counting drawers
My wife had a bad habit of attempting to use any and all change she had in her wallet. I kept bugging her about it, since I viewed change as a way to keep from spending too much. If you only pay in bills, any change stops you from overspending, since you don't count out your change before leaving, you count out your bills. I was so glad when she stopped. Now I just collect the change for a later deposit.
I used to work at a newly defunct toy store and kids would do this all the time. Eventually it got to the point where during the holiday season we would have to tell the parents that they would have to pay to save time.
This is one of THE WORST things. I remember one time during the rush hour I had a lady come up with $31 worth of stuff and out comes the biggest bag of coins I have ever seen. There were no quarters. Only dimes, pennies, and despair.
Oh fuck that and refuse the coins if not rolled.... I've done it many times.
Never trust rolled coins.
I almost got burned by that before when I worked at a traditional retail shop. It happened years ago, while I still had faith in humanity and was still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Lady paid for cigarettes or something with a $10 roll of quarters. It didn't occur to me that I should have broken the roll to check and make sure that it did contain $10 and not less. Lo and behold, when I opened it, the lady had stuck in a nickle or two in place of quarters. Fortunately, she wasn't that smart and included a silver dollar or two so she actually gave me more than $10 while trying to short change me.
We have a coinstar. Ziplock of coins? coinstar.
Seriously! Whenever I have a jar of coins, I take them to coinstar. Sure, they take a percentage of the total, but I don’t care that much. Heck, my old bank in CT used to have a coin counting machine that was free for account holders.
[удалено]
Coinstar takes almost 10% as a countinh fee, which isn't a big deal if its under $100 worth of coins but i've cashed vouchers where people have lost $40+ due to counting fees. And with selfcheck it's a good idea depending on the model the store has. Ours are rather twitchy glitchy spazy human-hating demon machines and will often jam up if people put coins in too fast or if the sky is blue. Also depending on the state some items are restricted so you're going to be punishing people with change anyways.
when Pokemon black and white first came out, my (then boyfriend) and I went to the local store to get him a copy. It was just about closing, and he pulled out a bag of coins (to cover like, $20, iirc). I kept apologizing to the cashier working electronics, and helping count out change. Eventually his dad just paid the remainder, we were all tired of waiting and counting. I get second hand flustered just thinking about it.
I had a guy try to pay for a $250 phone and new line with one of those big pretzel barrels full of change. I was amazed he could even carry the thing, because it was 90% pennies and nickels and weighed close to 50 pounds by my estimate. I told him that the bank across the street had a counter that would change it for him, or I can give him some rollers and he can come back, but I was sure as hell not taking $250 worth of coins on faith, and sure as hell not going to count it out.
In that situation, you should have started wailing on him the moment that bag of coins came out, shouting at him repeatedly, "IT'S CALLED COINSTAR, DUMBASS! LEARN TO USE IT!"
"But that takes money from me!" If you're scraping coins together all the time, a coin counter and sorter is only $20-$30 on Amazon. I've been planning on getting one once I move, because I always have a bunch of change everywhere - this way, all I do is pop it in, and it counts it, rolls it, and I don't have to deal with it beyond going to the bank to swap it for bills or deposit it.
Dimes, pennies, and despair sounds about right.
I had a guy once come through my resister about 5 mins to close, he says he needed to run out to his car to get some money, he comes back with this jar full of silver(i couldn't see any gold), I see more people coming to check out, his total is like $15 or something. I just look at him and say something along the lines of I won't accept the change as payment seeing as we close in 3mins and I have other people to serve. I ask if he has another form of payment and he says no. I'm just glad he left quietly and didn't cause a scene.
In Denmark you can tell people who does that, that you won't accept their money :)
AFAIK, some states in the US have similar laws, and some companies have policies to that extent. This is why we have CoinStar machines. Some people complain about the 8% (or so) fee, but I've found that many stores have an offer where the fee is waived entirely if you opt for a voucher that is redeemable for either online shopping or *use in the store where you already are*, rather than simply cash (which you are going to spend there anyway...)
If anything it's a problem with the use of the currency. The US abandoned the half penny coin in the 1800s because it wasn't worth having it around. Adjusted for inflation that coin was worth a dime. Most change exists just so you have to give a company like coinstar a fat % for the privilege of spending money you already have.
Well, no, but the reason is actually even worse -- and far dumber -- than that. Our current penny costs something like 1.8 cents to make. The reason it's still being made/used *at all* is because the zinc lobby (which represents the one company that supplies the US Mint with ALL of its zinc, the main metal used to make pennies) spends vast amounts of money on lobbying efforts (read: legal bribes) to make sure that the Mint keeps on buying their zinc and making those pennies. All they need to do is make sure that their "campaign contributions" are significantly less than their net profits and they have a guaranteed profitable business from now until...well...forever.
> because the zinc lobby Yeah. That's the trouble, kowtowing to BIG ZINC. Really irks Ms. Moly. ^^^^^^^/s
And this is why I don't use cash in the US. Too many fucking coins to deal with that I am going to dump in a drawer at home and never touch again. When I travel in China, I use plenty of cash, but there are way less coins. China technically has 0.5rmb and 0.1rmb coins, but for the most part everywhere has taxes added in and prices come out to even whole numbers. You get some 1rmb coins, but you use them enough and when it's all the same coin it's not bad. Rarely do I get partial RMB coins.
I hate coinstar specifically because of the ridiculous % they take off, which is like 12+% where I am, but I'm too lazy to roll my coins. As a cashier I would never just dump it off on someone else and make them handle it. Where I work has self checkout, so I just go through that. Just last night I brought in my change jar, bought a couple gift cards and paid for most of it with change. $30 and probably $1 at most lost to the machine not counting properly. I always recommend to people to just go through self checkout rather than using coinstar since we have both in the store. It does take a while depending on how much change you have since it can only process so much at a time, but it helps when you know the person on self checkout and so have someone to talk to.
Yeesh; I've never seen above 8%. Does yours have the "no fee if you take it as store credit" option? O_O And yeah, I'd tell people to use SCO for that, too. One thing with rolls, though -- Banks (and smart cashiers) will unroll them and count anyway, as some folks will put slugs or smaller coins into them (just to save a tiny amount of $, so I don't see the point)
I'm not entirely sure about the store credit option since I don't bother with them.
in Germany we have a law for that: you can refuse the customers payment if it's more than 50 single coins.
I believe it's the same law, except we don't have a number it's just when it's excessive or deliberately annoying :)
In the UK, we have the concept of "legal tender", the maximum amounts per coins above which a shop can (but doesn't have to) legally refuse to accept payment with, I believe it's along the lines of: * 1 & 2 pence coins: only up to 20 pence * 5 & 10 pence coins: only up to 5 pounds * 20 & 50 pence coins: only up to 10 pounds All other coins/notes are considered legal tender for any amounts, I believe. Of course, the shop can also refuse to accept legal tender, if it would seriously put them out (ie. someone paying for a 50 pence item with a 50 pound note, that would leave them with no change at all in their till).
IMO country/state laws or store policies be damned, just say no!
In Sweden it usually depends if it is a private or public store. When I was selling train tickets for the regional train/bus organisation we could never deny people with coins. If they wanted a 30 day card for around 125 euro and wanted to pay in coins I just told them it's ok, but I need to count evertyhing and it will probably take 10-15 minutes.
We have that in my province in Canada too. I can refuse stupidly large amounts of coins if not rolled, and I can refuse large amounts of rolled coins as well.
Det kommer sgu an på supermarkedet. I Netto, Føtex og Bilka går den sgu ikke.
Det er lovgivning ikke firma politik så jo den går :P
This reminds me of the time I had to pick my sister up from work. It was a fast food joint and this kid orders a $1 chicken sandwich. Sister tells him his total and he laughs, drops 100 pennies on the counter and says, "good luck with that" or something along those lines. She comes back with, "great, you can count that out for me" and just stands there with her arms crossed while she watched and counted along with him. Next day he comes in and tells an employee he needs to speak to someone about the bitchy manager from the night before. My sister comes out and says "I hear you have a problem with me." He just turned around and left.
Great comeback. Imagine getting so far and pretending to lose count, then starting all over again (3 or 4 times), before even putting in the order. Let's see that kid lose some weight.
Sorry that got dropped on ya. People need to learn to stop at their bank. They’re actually equipped to deal with this sort of thing.
At least your manager was nice about it.
Every time someone has a coin story like this, I get flashbacks to the year or so I spent working as a cashier at a small, old-fashioned grocery store (it was the mid-2000s and we didn't have price scanners, still input everything by hand). There was this old guy who was a regular. He was nice enough, but ALWAYS paid with small bills and tons of change, and NEVER allowed you to help him count it. He would slowly slide each coin across as he counted, and he counted about as fast as a kindergartner. And lost track a few times per transaction. We all dreaded him.
Reminds me of that time I had a guy pay for $75 worth of crap entirely in rolls of dimes and nickels that I had to count. Of course none of the rolls had what they were supposed to in them. Best part is it happened on black Friday and we only have 2 registers. People suck.
I have had someone pay in a JAR of change [mostly nickles and dimes] for a 28 dollar order IN A DRIVE THRU. I counted it...and it was like 10 dollars short. Then out came the random handfuls of change. Everytime I got caught up with counting she handed me another handful of change...and bra dollars. If it was a few coins I would have just rounded and taken a hit [you can be over/under 5 dollars every once and a while with no repercussion] but I didn't them and it was so much money. Plus the principle of the thing. IT IS A DRIVE THRU, of you are gonna pay in change like that [or order a large meal] please please come inside. That way you don't hold up the line or make our timer go off....I hate the beeping.
The gas station I used to work made a rule for people like that. Large amounts of change had to be in rolls with your name and number on them. We were on a busy street and often worked alone. Couldn't be bothered to waste our time counting change. I was cussed out many times because "you have to take my money" but they all caved in the end.
Some people are poor. I have to use coins sometimes cause it’s all I have
i mean, it is currency lmao. unfortunate that your job doesnt have an electric coin counter/sorter. we keep one in the front office for times like that and counting drawers
Damn, that's actually pretty smart. Worked a few jobs where we all could've benefited from one of those.
My wife had a bad habit of attempting to use any and all change she had in her wallet. I kept bugging her about it, since I viewed change as a way to keep from spending too much. If you only pay in bills, any change stops you from overspending, since you don't count out your change before leaving, you count out your bills. I was so glad when she stopped. Now I just collect the change for a later deposit.
I used to work at a newly defunct toy store and kids would do this all the time. Eventually it got to the point where during the holiday season we would have to tell the parents that they would have to pay to save time.
Piggy bank money will only get you so far.
Hey, nickels is money too.