What would you do?

It simply says he CAN go to court and have the debt discharged. Of course a judge can discharge a debt if he believes the debt owner is being unreasonable but its not a law. Legal tender means the debtor made a legal attempt to pay, and the holder refused payment. This legal act prohibits the debt holder to say the debtor is overdue, or charge interest. If you tried to pay your house off with pennies, they can refuse you. Now, that act woudl prevent them from charging you interest on the debt, but if they sued you for payment I am pretty sure the judge would force you to pay the debt in a less onerous manner.

Your situation was unusual since you became in debt to the gas station by pumping the gas. The situation would have been completely different if you walked in and wanted to buy $10 worth of groceries. Then they had every right to simply say NO, I willl not sell you anything for pennies, and they have every right in the world to do so. Also, if they would have posted on the gas pump no payment in pennies then you pumping gas and then trying to pay in pennies were breaking the law for theft.

You are not golden sir, though you may think you are. Camaro is correct.

Chris

 

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Stores, other businesses can refuse to take certain coinage/bills

Even though the coins in common usage (1-5-10-25 cent coins) and bills (1-2-5-10-20-50-100) and are all LEGAL TENDER (meaning they can legally be tendered for payment) stores and businesses do NOT have to accept all of them. There is a sign at one of my local gas stations (which is prepay, since I'm in California) stating that they will not accept over 3 dollars in change for purchases. They are within their rights to determine that for any transaction they will not accept over a certain amount of change. So you can either get bills and pay or use a card. Also the San Francisco Trolley will not accept change for their tickets. They will turn you away. I know because I tried to use 11.00 in quarters to buy a round trip ticket. They told me no and if I wanted to ride, to come back with bills.
Also there are many establishments that will not accept bills over 20.00, and they post signs stating such.
Although you are free to call the police if you want them to accept that, I bet that when they come out you will be the one charged with making a frivolous call to the police. You might even be charged later with the cost of the police doing their job by responding, depending on the place it occurs. Some police are more willing to just go on than others, depending on the locality and how they want to handle it. The police are not there to make a business accept a certain type of coin or bill.

 

I do agree that this makes the situation somewhat challenging. I think if I was the station manager, I would probably just accept the change (as they did) if no other method of payment was possible. I don't think it would be worth the trouble of enforcing their legal right to require accepting another form.

That said, I will try and steer this topic back on track because I certainly helped get it here.

You can report it to your local authorities if you want but I doubt anything will come out of it. It is legal to alter coins in this manner as long as it's not being done to commit fraud. What I'm sure you have found is common date coins that appear to have their marks removed...resulting in a common date coin. Then, the coin is being spent. It is odd, but there is no crime there per se.

Now, why is the person doing this? Who knows. It could be as simple as someone practicing carving...as if they are making hobo nickels. But, it could also be someone harvesting mint marks off coins to add them to other coins. You take a D off a common date cent and stick it on a 1914...and suddenly you have a nice fake (which obviously is illegal). Unfortunately, you don't have any way to prove one verses the other. Without that, the authorities can't do anything. Even though you have contact information, what you have is not enough evidence to allow the authorities to get a search warrant or anything.

So, you can try...but I think it would be a waste of time.

 

But its not. It is only illegal to SELL the fake as an authentic coin. It is not illegal to add a mintmark to a 1914 for your own uses. If you sold it as a fake, and under the terms of the Hobby Protection Act marked it as such, that is perfectly legal. I have bought fakes knowingly for my black cabinet, all legally purchased.

What this means is simply that there is no use reporting for something like that. If they were pre 82 I would simply put them in a scrap metal pile and consider myself money ahead.

 

You are correct. I was intending to refer back to my first sentence where I said "It is legal to alter coins in this manner as long as it's not being done to commit fraud." I meant to say that the fake 1914-D could be used to commit fraud which would obviously be illegal. I wasn't specific enough.

This quick reply window doesn't give me the ability to proof read my posts as easily as the old reply screen did. I think I'm going to start using the advanced feature. :rolling:

 

Snopes is usually accurate, and is probably in this case, but I didn't read the link. It's a strange situation for gas, because usually merchants won't hand over the item until payment is received. But merchants don't have to accept anything, they can sell a newspaper for a tootsie roll if they'd like to. And there used to be a legal limit to the amount of change that could be used to pay a debt, but there isn't any more:
At one time there were definite limits to how much small change you could legally unload on the people you owed money to--25 cents in the case of "minor coins" (the penny and the nickel) and $10 for "silver coins" (the dime, quarter, and half-dollar).
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/297/is-it-legal-to-pay-a-big-debt-in-small-change

 

Odd to have to put such personal info on a roll...
Most banks I have dealt with require you put your account number.
That is a more accurate identifier for them, and more generic for the public.
And I don't know about elsewhere, but banks around here are militant about not dealing with people that don't have accounts.
They have started to charge $5 to cash a check drawn on their bank if you don't have an account!
(Someone can write you a check, and they will charge you $5 to cash it! However, if you deposit it in your bank, no charge.)

 

Man, this is just crazy !! ALL the banks I get my rolls from and dump at tell me that under Federal Privacy Laws they do not want personal information put on the wrappers !! Go figure ?

 

Banks and Credit Unions have always required a name and phone# on rolled coins brought in by people who rolled them in a generic roll, so if there is ever any doubt as to the roll containing the correct amount of coins per denomination or even slugs. However, the banks I get rolls from take a black marker and blackout that information before handing me the roll.

 

A couple years ago, BOA made me black out my info before they would take them. And they told me not to put identifying info on it. But other banks still give out rolls with info on it, but don't make you put info on the rolls you turn in.

That said, I don't know what good it does to black out the info before handing the roll to you, because I don't know of banks that take in rolls like that, check them, and re-roll them! So if they are doing this, it's only so you don't have the personally identifiable info of someone else. Even a name.

 

I'm really surprised large banks even take customer rolled coin. The large bank I worked at didn't. I can see small banks and credit unions doing it to save on ordering rolled coin...but you would think all big banks would open them and dump them in a coin machine.

 

i only know of 1 bank in my area of cincinnati that has a counting machine. i can't say for sure of other areas of cincinnati, but within a 2 mile radius (49 banks), there is 1 bank with a counting machine.

 

Yeah, most banks in my area don't have counting machines, except for TCF. Chase has one at the large branch down in Detroit, and Flagstar has one at corporate in Troy, but most branches take rolled coin from customers, and don't have machines. Credit unions often do have counting machines around here, however.

 

That was the point to my post, so the name and phone# was not passed on to someone obtaining the roll.

 

That surprises me. Most banks around here seem to have them, at least the banks I have visited. But, I guess it makes sense that they accept rolled coin then.

 

Read this thread: http://forums.collectors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=26&threadid=683722

 

Re-read it but a little more slowly this time. I mean, past the word FALSE. It clearly explains the law.

 

Merchants can refuse to accept rolled coins for payment of merchandise from their business. It's much akin to most 7-11s not accepting $50 or $100 bills after certain hours, or at all for that matter.

The fact the OP was actually able to find a gas station that allowed him to pump gas without paying for it first is meaningless as the merchant could have simply refused to accept 40 rolls of pennies for payment of gas.

 

I read it in full way before this thread was begun. Read the little part in parenthesis that begins four lines from the verrrry bottom. No prior posted limitations would have given me all the leverage. Also, read the responses to the story in the link that you provided. the majority of people side with the person with the pennies.

 

Seems a little odd you could pump gas before paying for it.
The town i live in all want you to pay first due to the number of drive offs that led to loss of money for some stores