Coingate 2014

[Mytical]

No this story did not happen in 2014, just seemed a nice title.

First some Back ground. At the time I was a cashier/stock person. Third shift. The rule was, if it is money we HAVE to take it.. regardless. Keep this in mind.

Now the store I worked in was between a nice neighbor hood and a ghetto. This is not important, except that at the end of the month.. lots and lots of coins then. Lots. Hardly ever rolled or anything.

Well I had just come on the clock, and was told that they need cashier more then stock..so up to the register I go. Very first customer. They had a full cart full. Forget the total, but it was up there. And.. they brought out a rather large jar of coins... and.. I had to count EVERY SINGLE ONE. This is NO lie, it took 2 hours for one customer. The customer really wasn't sucky about it (thus why I have no posted this before). I know the count was over 100+ dollars. In change. No ability to say 'Um no we can't accept this'. The good part is never got hollared at or in trouble of any kind. By the end of it though..I was sure I would have nightmares about coins.

[BearLeeBadenaugh]

2 hours for one customer? Dang, that's obscene. A business that deals with that much change really should get a coin counter. I specify a counter mainly because I've dealt with enough banks that won't deposit rolled coins. Something like the Cassida C500 or the coinmate CS-10 would work nicely. Essentially a coin hopper, the counter/sorter mechanism and outputs into a bag. They could be used to sort into tubes as well, but it was hassle enough that anyone who wanted to tube we talked into going to the next model. If I'm remembering right, either model would count around 1500-2000 coins per minute and could be set to display either a coin count or a $ value. I like these 2 models because they're portable, but from an accounting standpoint, there's much better models. Something like a Semacon S series. Back when I was installing POS systems, one of the stores we dealt with had over 30 registers and kept one of these machines on a portable cart with a battery backup. If they had a large coin payment they'd wheel the sorter over and run the coins through. The sorter would print a receipt, which went into the drawer for later balance, and then they wheeled the sorter back into the front office.

[Trixie]

I haven't anything like that but I've had someone pay with $8 in nickels. Nickels! A dollar in pennies. But nothing tops the day I had one woman pay $12 in change then a couple hours later another woman came in with $16 dollars in change. Maybe an hour later I had a kid come in and ask to cash in some change I said no. Two of the registers were already overflowing and probably didn't need any change for three days after that.

In the times that I needed to get rid of change I just used the Coinstar machine. Whatever the charged was well worth it for me to get some foldin' money. We sell a bag of coin wrapper for less than 2 bucks and someone could probably find then cheaper. It's not really that much effort to wrap them up.

[Tama]

I still remember how one time when I still worked at Malmart, this couple of idiots bought some kind of electronic device and paid the entire $100 balance with penny rolls.

Granted we had a scale, and granted they were rolled, but these chuckleheads had cashed a check and done this ON PURPOSE!!!

[Evannah]

That customer obviously had a lot of time on their hands and didn't care that not everyone was in the same boat! Selfish or what!!

[notalwaysright]

They must not have had any frozen or refrigerated food. Mytical says the person wasn't sucky, but I would beg to differ. You take two hours to check out at a grocery store, full cart or not, and you're sucky.

[pzychobitch]

I still remember how one time when I still worked at Malmart, this couple of idiots bought some kind of electronic device and paid the entire $100 balance with penny rolls.

Granted we had a scale, and granted they were rolled, but these chuckleheads had cashed a check and done this ON PURPOSE!!!

I literally did the same thing a few weeks ago to pay for a registration ticket I got a while back. (Legit registration, didn't have it with me when I got pulled over for speeding lol).

Granted the total in my case was just under 40 bucks, but still.

[emax4]

Would you be permitted to intentionally hold up the customer by telling them, "ok, I'm going to have to take my break now. This will be about 15 minutes. I'll stop now and resume counting when I come back.."? It's not punishment for wasting time, it's actually taking a break by law (depending on state). If the customers really are mad, then they can be told to either pay cash or wait like they're making the cashier wait (by having to count all the change).

[Mytical]

Unfortunately no. I was lucky if I got a break to be honest. However, lunch would have been acceptable..to bad it was at the beginning of my shift, so didn't fall within my lunch time. I would have LOVED to do so, but sadly no. I can still see that coin jar in my mind. It was very large.

[taxguykarl]

Then there was the couple who paid their $300+ prep fee all singles.

[xxscooterxx]

I got a bad cussing one night because a lady came in and told me that she wanted paper money for over 30$ worth of change. I told her no. Well this is a gas station ya'll don't need change? Not that much, no. Go to coinstar like I do and gtfo.

[purple]

Worst I ever remember having was only $10. However the girl tipped her purse up on the counter, looked at the pile of coins (mostly 10 and 20 cent coins) and told me there should be at least $10 in there.

[Tama]

I wish we had 20¢ coins here in the US...

[Sapphire Silk]

I'll admit, when I was in high school I didn't always have a lot of cash. A lot of times I would hit the golden arches with whatever spare change I could scrape up.

But I usually knew what I needed to get my usual, so I'd just count it out into their hands.

[Aethian]

This is why I hit the self stations when it's quiet and use the coins to pay for things. Thankfully it doesn't happen very often and unless I have a lot of quarters is less then five bucks in change.