Are you getting shorted when you bring your coins to the bank?

[Schatzy]

I found this article it is very interesting since I don't recall counting my change before I go into the bank.

 

BETWEEN THE negligible interest they pay us and the bonanza bonuses they pay themselves, we have reason to hate big banks.

 

Here's one more: One of them may be shorting you on the free coin-counting service it offers.

 

Stephen Starkey, a 55-year-old painting contractor, told me that it happened to him - twice - in the Aston branch of TD Bank. The first time, last year, it was only a suspicion. Last Jan. 19 it became a certainty because Starkey patiently counted $286 in coins before running them through the coin counter. He got a receipt for $241.

 

He complained to a TD Bank staffer, who opened the machine.

 

"He found screws, lint, novelty coins in there, cleaned it out," Starkey said, then poured in a test roll of quarters, which the machine counted accurately. The staffer smugly told Starkey he was wrong. Words were exchanged.

 

Unimpressed by the brief test, Starkey reached out to the Daily News.

 

"If the Aston employees hadn't have provoked me I would have let it go," he told me, adding that he knows others who say that they've been shorted.

 

Let's go undercover!

 

 

 

 

The next morning I took a cache of change to the TD Bank at 15th and JFK and ran the coins through the "Penny Arcade," which is what they call the coin counter. I was shorted. Coincidence?

 

The night before I counted out $60.50 - $50 in quarters, $5 in dimes, $4 in nickels, $1.50 in pennies. My receipt credited me with $59.76 - three quarters less than I counted and one penny more. Not a big difference, but short nonetheless.

 

My receipt showed the time as 5:59:34, but I got there at 8:24 a.m., so the internal clock's wrong, too.

 

The man before me, wearing a vendor apron, had a canvas change bag about the size of a pineapple. He dumped his change in, the Penny Arcade whirred, counted, then stopped, showing $158 and change. The vendor said, "I had a lot more than that" and called over a staffer. She hit a button, the machine whirred some more, then coughed up a receipt for $223 and change. (Customers take the receipts to tellers who exchange them for cash.)

 

Before your coins are deposited, the Penny Arcade asks if you want to play a game: If you guess the amount of your change within $1.99, you win a prize. I "guessed" $60.50, the amount I counted.

 

When my receipt showed $59.76, the staffer smiled and congratulated me on my guess. I confessed it wasn't a guess at all and asked her to explain the shortage. She said I might have counted wrong, "or the computer may be off."

 

As if I need another reason to distrust computers.

 

She said that if I told the teller the correct amount, I'd be given it. That's what happened, no questions asked - except by me, asking the teller if this happens often. "Not very often," she said. But she didn't say "never."

 

The same morning I was in Center City, Starkey hit TD branches in in Brookhaven, where he was shorted 57 cents, and Folsom, where he got 37 cents too much.

 

"I didn't start this as a jihad to regulate the coin machine at all the banks," Starkey said. "It began to occur to me that when the machines are free of lint, debris, screws and stuff, they work fairly well."

 

I wondered what TD Bank thinks.

 

The shortages were news to spokeswoman Rebecca Acevedo.

 

"This is first I've heard of this," she said. "We've never had any trouble before."

 

She did some checking and got back to me.

 

The Penny Arcade can count 3,500 coins a minute, swallowing everything except Eisenhower silver dollars. It is supposed to be cleaned and tested at least three times a day and the vendor performs preventive maintenance twice a year. When the machine is cleaned and maintained properly, Acevedo said it is 99.9 percent accurate.

 

If there's a complaint, managers can credit a customer "up to a certain dollar amount," which she declined to reveal.

 

It seemed like a fair explanation, although I question the 99.9 percent accuracy rate.

 

The fact that TD Bank is willing to trust the customer, at least in small amounts, is nice - but customers would know they were shorted only if they counted their change before running it through the Penny Arcade.

 

But don't we use the machines so we won't have to count our messy change?

 

Source: Link

[Schatzy]

Letters: Adventures in coin-counting

Philadelphia Daily News

 

RE BYKO'S column on the bank coin-counting machine:

Two years ago, I cashed in change and got around $350. Didn't have many quarters because I used them for tolls. Last week, I took the same jar with far more quarters and a lot more coins. I counted the quarters before I took them ($72.75). When the machine finished, it counted $247 and change, $50.25 in quarters, less than the previous year even with more coins overall.

 

I questioned the teller, and she told me the machine is inaccurate sometimes, and they'd call me if there was a difference when they checked it.

 

I never got a call. Now, after reading the column, I'm kicking myself for not pressing the issue. As time-consuming as it is, count it and roll it yourself. I know I will.

 

Tom Dowling

 

Philadelphia

 

 

IHATE THE coin machines!

 

No one at my office believed me when I said they shorted me.

 

The first time, I thought, maybe I miscounted, the second time I asked for help.

 

When I complained, I was told I must have miscounted. It was my third trip to my bank (a different one from yours) when I realized, yeah, I was being gypped.

 

And heaven help you if you're in the middle of counting your change there and the bag fills up and needs changing. I lost almost $10 that time - but no more!

 

Now I count all my change beforehand and have baggies with the totals written on them. I never put anything more than $12 in my bags.

 

Thank you for bringing this into the open.

 

Deborah Reading

 

Source: Link

[johnny9434]

I prefer the old fashined way of doing it by hand as agreveating as that is. That way I know I wont get burned by the bank ( pig err Aig, sorry, citibank, B.O.A.)

[cpm9ball]

Coinstar takes in about 2.2 billion dollars a year in change. If the machines produce an error ratio of just 2%, that is $44,000,000 in excess profits.

 

Chris

[gbsten]

This is interesting. In the 1980's & early '90's I owned a pretty large vending machine business. I owned my own coin counter and had to bag and seal my coins into Federal Reserve bag counts (5000 cents, 2000 nickels, 5000 dimes, 2000 quarters). I deposited an average of $10,000 a week, which would be re-counted and adjusted. My "adjustment" amount averaged about $2 a week. If my math is correct that works out to about 99.98% accuracy. That was with equipment from over 30 years ago. I can vouch for the fact that the equipment is much more reliable now. Something is up with this!

 

As a side note, yes I did receive lots of good material! Best find was a mint roll of mercury dimes (purchased lots of rolled coin for change machines). Also got a roll of '49-D BU Washingtons!

[PerryHall]

I spend my change as fast as I get it. I don't like giving Coin Star 9% nor dealing with rolling a bunch of coins. Most prople are just lazy. For a $2.87 purchase, it's easier for them to give the cashier three dollars and throw the change in a jar than to count out 87 cents in change.

[pendragon1998]

I've got a local bank that offers a free coin counting machine like the one in the story. More than once, I was gypped $1-3 on $100-300. I'd also pre-counted, so I knew exactly how much I was depositing. I eventually stopped using that bank.

[bartlesvilleok]

Coinstar takes in about 2 billion dollars a year in change. If the machines produce an error ratio of just 2%, that is $44,000,000 in excess profits.

 

Chris

 

Isn't 2% of 2 billion $40,000,000?

[cpm9ball]

Coinstar takes in about 2.2 billion dollars a year in change. If the machines produce an error ratio of just 2%, that is $44,000,000 in excess profits.

 

Chris

 

Isn't 2% of 2 billion $40,000,000?

 

My fault! Actually, they take in about 2.2 billion annually which equates to 44 million.

 

Chris

[bartlesvilleok]

I use to work the cash office at a $130 million dollar a year retail store and there is more the one type of coin counters. It seems like the kind that counts and sorts like the coin star machines and banks use are not as accurate as the one uses to bag and roll the coins.

 

Seems as long as the machine is very clean then everything does good but you have to keep them clean. We would clean ours daily and find small peices of paper, and paper clip in there from the bags. Also money is very dirty and there would be a TON of dust.

 

 

[michael]

I spend my change as fast as I get it. I don't like giving Coin Star 9% nor dealing with rolling a bunch of coins. Most prople are just lazy.

 

 

(thumbs u

[Schatzy]

I spend my change as fast as I get it. I don't like giving Coin Star 9% nor dealing with rolling a bunch of coins. Most prople are just lazy.

 

If is free for coin sorting if you get a gift card to one of the retailers.

I started using them when I could get a Lowe's gift card since that is good as cash

to me since I shop there for work supplies at least 2 times of the week.

[cpm9ball]

They're free at our local federal credit union if you have an account with them.

 

Chris

[CHABSENTIA]

They're free at our local federal credit union if you have an account with them.

 

Chris

 

They dont have one on my Bank. I go there rarely as I have Direct Deposit and Online Banking. Occassionally I have to go to deposit a check and have taken coins. rolled up. It used to be that you would have to write your account on the rolls but you dont have to anymore.

[James_OldeTowne]

My bank rolls up change for no charge.

[bochiman]

They're free at our local federal credit union if you have an account with them.

 

Chris

 

 

"free" because they may rip you off (even if unwittingly)

 

I say that because I have a CU one as well and I have suspected it of ripping me off more than once....

Lint, foreign objects, filled bags, foreign coins (lot from India since there is a good sized Indian populace here), and everything else makes it suspect.

 

I have another bag of over $300 I need to take in....~$30 in pennies, $270ish in dimes, maybe another $20 in quarters, maybe $30ish in nickels.

 

Don't want to have to count it out all myself....I really wish they would take care of their machines (they refuse to take ANY coins through the tellers themselves)

[cpm9ball]

They're free at our local federal credit union if you have an account with them.

 

Chris

 

 

"free" because they may rip you off (even if unwittingly)

 

I say that because I have a CU one as well and I have suspected it of ripping me off more than once....

Lint, foreign objects, filled bags, foreign coins (lot from India since there is a good sized Indian populace here), and everything else makes it suspect.

 

I have another bag of over $300 I need to take in....~$30 in pennies, $270ish in dimes, maybe another $20 in quarters, maybe $30ish in nickels.

 

Don't want to have to count it out all myself....I really wish they would take care of their machines (they refuse to take ANY coins through the tellers themselves)

 

Despite the hassle, I make it a habit of counting it beforehand. Besides, I'd be more concerned about the accuracy of gasoline pumps. I've been buying gas for more than 45 years, and I have NEVER! seen a state inspector checking the accuracy of the pumps.

 

Chris