I know there's a coin shortage...

Dreamstalker · #1 10-17-2020, 02:36 PM

...and while I appreciate you cleaning out the piggy bank, I still cannot accept $20 in pennies, nickels and dimes. That's not what "exact change" means. If you want to do that go to SCO; the system doesn't care what form of tender it gets but it will tell you if you're short (which I'm sure you are and you're hoping I miss that fact). Humans are allowed by law to refuse an "unreasonable amount" of coinage.

Most functioning people take "please pay with exact change" to mean just that; bills and then the exact change (or an approximation thereof) if you have it. I had a couple people who chose to pay with all change, and I wasn't clued in to this until I had already started tendering the transaction...I didn't direct them to the Coinstar because I know that cash takes a fee and I didn't know if they still offered store gift cards (that would also take longer, because there was no manager to be had so I couldn't suspend the transaction).

earl colby pottinger · #2 10-17-2020, 03:12 PM

I was going to suggest CoinStar when I started to read too.

But $20 in smaller coins is too much. I have done $20 in toonies ($2 coins) but I would not expect someone to take that in nickels and dimes.

Dreamstalker · #3 10-17-2020, 03:37 PM

The CDH sent some girls to Coinstar when they tried this a couple days ago; come to find they did have EXACT change and were none too happy upon finding out the machine took a cut (so while they did now have cash, they were short and had to run home anyway to get more

Some people who pay with mountains of change are just doing it to be a dick, but some are honestly calculating things to the penny and don't have extra handy (I've been in that situation myself a couple times).

Trixie · #4 10-17-2020, 04:11 PM

One evening in roughly a 90 minute time frame, I had not one but TWO customers pay with all change one was about $13 and the other was $16. Not soon after someone wanted to and eventually did pay with $9 in NICKELS ONLY. At least I didn't have to count the drawer at the end of the night.

dalesys · #5 10-17-2020, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Quoth Trixie

... I didn't have to ~~count~~ lift the drawer at the end of the night.

That rotator cuff, you know...

EricKei · #6 10-17-2020, 06:51 PM

Been a while since I used a CoinStar, but the ones I've seen have a deal where there's no fee if you convert it all into store credit rather than getting it back in bills/cash. Do they not do that anymore?

dbuzman · #7 10-18-2020, 01:20 AM

Quote:

Quoth EricKei

Been a while since I used a CoinStar, but the ones I've seen have a deal where there's no fee if you convert it all into store credit rather than getting it back in bills/cash. Do they not do that anymore?

The last one I used was in a Giant Eagle and you could not get store credit from it. The best no fee option was I believe an amazon gift card. But that was about 10 years ago.

Dreamstalker · #8 10-18-2020, 04:35 PM

Ours has no-fee gift cards, but they're national brands like Amazon, Gamestop, Starbucks etc. Back when I first started working there you could get gift cards for our store, but I haven't seen that option for quite some time...they probably saw that not many people were doing that option so got rid of it.

csquared · #9 10-18-2020, 06:53 PM

CoinStar gets a kickback from the gift card providers to offset their percent taken. More likely, your store opted out.

skeptic53 · #10 10-19-2020, 01:28 AM

Reminds me of a really, really old Reader's Digest story, in which the change is going the other direction. A woman gets on a trolley car for which the fare is 5 cents. She hands the conductor a $5 bill and says "I'm very sorry, I don't have a nickel". He responds "Don't worry, lady, in a few minutes you'll have 99".