My dump bank won't take my coins anymore...advice needed!

Yeah, I kinda glossed over this statement, but seriously, I'd like to hear your reasoning behind this. Why is it in their best interests to "help a guy out"? What kind of future business are we talking about? Do you have hundreds of thousands of dollars under your mattress? Are you due for a large inheritance? Is your new and unique software about to be bought by Microsoft? Or are you simply talking about a $25 token deposit from your allowance (no disrespect intended) to say "Hey, I have an account here"? Trust me, unless the bank opened this morning, they have heard this story too many times to count, without it coming to fruition. This is the classic example of "money talks, (see below*) walks".

By the way, Financial institutions that act the way you describe in your second paragraph are following sound business practices, not "shooting themselves in the foot". They are, after all, still in business despite declining to be an exchange medium for you, and the thousands of others who harbor similar feelings toward these companies.

(*Insert the word commonly used to describe the end product of the digestive process of male cattle*)

 

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Probably, instead of walking all over town, looking for a bank to exchange straps of 1s for larger bills (presumably 20s or something), why not take 20 of them into a convenience store or liquor store and ask if they would give you a twenty for them. Most likely they would, as that type of business is always in need of smaller bills.

Just an idea for the future.

 

Frankly, I'm puzzled that so many people jumped on Tater's back for this post...? Are ya'll just playing devil's advocate here, or do you really care that much about defending the bank tellers’ “right” to pick and choose which services they provide and to whom?
I guess I'm in the minority here because I'm on TaterTot's side. Sure, banks are there to run a business and make lots of money, which they do, but bank tellers are not the bank itself. That is, they are not the owners of the bank and their job is not to hassle current or potential customers about conducting coin transactions simply because "the bank might not make money...." It's their job to serve current customers with a smile, and to drum up new business by hooking new account-holders. It’s not the teller’s job to monitor and patrol the bank’s profit margins.
It might happen that a branch manager has to step in if any particular service becomes a problem for the branch, and in such a case it of course wouldn’t be fair to fault a teller for following branch procedure. However, it's certainly not their job to "freelance" their own policies based on how someone is dressed, how much $ they have, whether they appear to have a car or not, etc; and unfortunately many banks have at least a few of these “Entitled Eddies.” That's what Tater is talking about—those bottom-feeder tellers who jump on the chance to be lazy/treat certain people poorly just because they can, and because they have some hogwash justification to cover their butts in case anyone goes to the manager about it.

So why do some tellers jump on the chance to dole out preferential treatment? I think it’s often rooted in a power trip, an ego thing, or the fact that Tammy Teller is so wrapped up in herself that she actually believes she is an accurate judge of which customers the bank “doesn’t need” now and in the future—that the bank actually wants her to weed-out the peons. And if it's the boss' brownie points she is after, I'd bet a '64 Kennedy that, on average, the teller who does everything within her power to indiscriminately serve with a smile will do more for the bank, long term, than the one who chooses to pass judgment while they’re standing behind glass looking down their nose at poor, sweaty Tater. Of course, these types of employees are not confined to banks (See "the McDonalds employee who Bogarts ketchup packets" and “the restaurant server who ignores your table because you don’t ‘look like’ a big tipper”). It’s amazing how entitled some people feel at their jobs....

I totally understand the point about the bank "shooting themselves in the foot" by denying petty services to people, account-holder or not. You just never know who your lifelong customers will be, or who will have what in the future. A $500 account holder today could be the $500,000 holder a year or two from now. I sincerely doubt B of A wants Salty Sam, the teller, to pass judgments on customers, tick them off, and risk losing them as a lifelong customer over some stupid coins? A little “nice” goes a long way toward building a successful business, whereas just a dash of “nasty” can ruin it all. You just never know… That said, Tater, I’d definitely let that teller’s manager know about your experience, and how she acted smugly after you suggested taking your business elsewhere.

 

I work at a bank myself and am a CRH and see it from the banks side. We get customers who come off the street to exchange rolled change for bills all the time. We first ask if they have an account so that we can put that info on the wrappers in case a roll is over or short, which happens ALL THE TIME. If they say no, we then have to decide if we want to take the risk of a roll being off with no recourse. NonCustomers may write their info on the wrapper, but that does no good because they won't come back to give us 10 or 20 cents when a roll is short. We ask if they would be interested in opening an account with us. They give us the same ole spiel about how they already have an account elsewhere or they don't want to bank with us. At that point, why should we service their needs? They have purposely chosen NOT to bank with us and have no desire to, but want us to service them while taking a monetary risk. NOPE! We refer them to Coinstar. They get mad and leave. It costs us time and money to service them and they have zero interest in helping us. We are here to service our customers and have no obligation to service those who don't want to do business with us. The bank I work at is open 7 days a week and we get hounded on the weekends for change orders from non account holder businesses and customers. If they want our weekend service, then open an account. If they say they are not interested in an account, we charge them. It's a business decision, period. We hear every sob story, but that's just it, it's usually a story. What other type of business do you think you can walk into and expect to get serviced for FREE? Why are banks any different than other businesses?

 

Probably because banks use OUR money (all US money is collectively ours, as we are, or should be the final say in everything our government does) and since they make literal billions off of nothing more than leveraging our own money back against us, why shouldn't we be able to exchange money for money? If they are a chartered bank then they are part of the Federal Reserve's network who theoretically should work for us since its a government sanctioned entity and thus OUR money that is refusing to be equally exchanged.

I run a business (and manage 2 more) and also occasionally run out of change at odd times and need more. If they want my FUTURE business then they best EARN it, which even means taking care of me when I'm not a customer because that's how you get new ones and one day my bank may falter and close or I may open other businesses and wish to keep them separate from any others I may have and need a new place for an account. Both scenarios are actually true and apply directly to me, so who do I give the business to? The banks who helped me even though I wasn't a customer or the ones who turned me away because 'that's just business'. Ill tell you where my money went, and it was a sizable yearly account too, not to any of the banks who have ever treated me like crap, you can bet on that.

 

So can I use your businesses services for free until on day I MAY decide to be a paying customer? My bank doesn't make money off of your money in another bank, just what my customers deposit. Exchanging money is fine, but we keep only enough on hand for our paying customers, not extra. We lose money when cash is sitting in the vault and not being invested each night. So to keep extra on hand for noncustomers takes money from my business.

 

i really do also think that if you are friendly with them they will be friendly with you and giving them such things as candy or gift cards will make the situation a lot better

 

You are 100% right. We have places that treat us well in exchange of us helping them. But when a person or business is snotty with us or try to bully us into helping them, then we send them on their way.

 

Actually yes you can come in my business and use my services for free. As I am a retail market that's exactly my business model. To help people with whatever they may need and try to WIN their business until they decide to make a purchase.

How can you 'lose' money by having physical cash or coin in a vault? That doesn't make any sense. You may lose the opportunity to make MORE money, but we both know that's not really true on the small amount of coin and cash you would need extra for the few non paying customers of whatever bank you work for.

Justify it how you want, but a bank should provide minor services to anyone that isn't asking for something crazy. Not exchanging $100 in quarters for a single hundred dollar bill and jeopardizing loosing a potential new customer is absurd and really your bank does so much in walk in off the street folks that they can't help an average joe out. And people wonder why the banks have been vilified for the last several years, it's their greed and then lack of service to potential new clients.

You have no idea what any one of those people asking for change may need. And likely a large portion of them are business owners hence why they would need change in the first place.

 

Of course, being friendly is recommended. I figured that was assumed without having to say it (i.e., "the Golden Rule").


I am, however, vehemently opposed to the idea of bribing people, let alone bribing people to fulfill duties they are already being paid to do. Besides my natural opposition to suddenly start spending $ on a hobby that is otherwise free, and my hesitation to walk into a bank and play Santa Claus with perfect strangers, I see a broader problem with bribery: It adds to bank EMPLOYEES' feelings of entitlement to dole out preferential treatment (i.e., discriminate).


This problem brings to mind two analogies that I think highlight the issue at hand. First, consider the parent who rewards their child with a toy in exchange for playing nice. The child quickly associates "being nice" with "personal kickback" and becomes spoiled to the extent that they only act nice if kickbacks are foreseen. Second, consider police officers in corrupt countries who expect bribes from foreigners they pull over in exchange for not being thrown in the local slammer. These corrupt EMPLOYEES become so drunk with the power to extort that it no longer occurs to them to do the right thing (i.e., their job) to begin with.


Bribery is a slippery slope, and despite the fact that such “wink and nod” arrangements may benefit the individuals who use them, I consider such practices to be a long term detriment to roll hunting hobbyists, in general. The last thing we need is more spoiled/corrupt bank EMPLOYEES throwing their weight around like they own the place; and the more we spoil them, the more we validate their personal feelings of entitlement.

 

It usually is that simple. Show them respect and they may cater to your needs more easily. So many banks won't give you change because you are not a customer nevermind dumping it on them. I do know most tellers have no problem unloading CWR however. My only account is with BOA, however I got to a TD Bank in my town all of the time because it is still open by the time I get out of work during the week. There is a teller there who is more than happy to unload her CWR on me and even saved me a 1964 Kennedy the other day because she know why I want the coins.

 

It's not about defending the teller's rights. It's about defending the teller's obligation to follow any bank policies that are in place that prevent that teller from exchanging money for non-customers. It's about the fact that nobody has the right to demand these services from companies they don't do business with. He got on here and whined. We just responded.

The bank teller is the first line of defense for the bank. They most certainly are "the bank". Again, understand that they work for the bank, and follow all policies and procedures that the bank established to control their interests. Sure, they're there to smile and serve the customers. It's somebody else's job (The Marketing Department) to drum up business. Most tellers don't open accounts. they refer you to somebody else in the building. How many of your own employer's policies will you violate to help out "poor, sweaty Tater" until you realize your job's gone over a stranger who isn't a customer? And, how many times do they accommodate Tater until they realize he has no intention of opening an account?

Interesting...we're talking about a person who thinks tellers should cater to his every whim, and you call the tellers "Entitled Eddies". You equate their following bank policy and denying a non-customer free services with "looking down their noses. Gotta wonder who has the name Eddie.

Do you understand the odds of that $500 account turning into $500,000? My guess would be slim to none. You guys act like you're the first ones to walk into a bank and get shot down because you don't have accounts, then try the whole "I might be a big depositor some day. You'll regret this then" scam. Unless the bank just opened yesterday, they've seen this attitude come and go for years with little fruition. For all the "lost business", most are still open and serving paying customers.

 

Uh, no my money is mine. Not yours. Not the bank's. Not the government's (they got their share before it went into the bank). So no, you don't get a say in how the bank uses MY money. As a customer of said bank, you get a say-so. Because they're chartered by the government does not mean they are government entities. Most are private or publicly owned, with shareholders. Understand that the bank incurs fees for buying and selling coins and currency. There are delivery fees, storage fees, etc. You want them to eat these fees simply because you "may" do business with them someday. Really.

When you say they "best earn" your business, I read that your idea is that they should spend money on the hopes that you'd grace them with your business. Just curious..are all the banks you bypassed because they didn't cater to your needs still in business, despite your large deposits into their competitor? I would bet they are.

 

My responses are in bold within the quote:

As far as your last line, I would think a business who has a good relationship with a bank of which they are a customer, wouldn't have much problem getting any reasonable accommodation. Especially when they have so much in the accounts.

 

Retail Market. I guess I should have been more specific. We retail fresh seafood. My service is free and in good faith all the way until the customers pays us. Sure we hope that they will pay us after helping them select their items, clean them to their specifications, and so on, but until that money is in the til, we are performing all services for free in order to gain that money at the end of the transaction. The only reason we finally do get the money is because of one simple thing.....CUSTOMER SERVICE. If that customer didnt feel treated properly and welcomed in our business then they have every right to abandon everything on the table and leave and never come back sticking me with god knows how much of a loss on their potential purchase (varies from case to case). Now if they came back in a second or third time I would continue to service them in hopes that I could make things right and gain a new customer to keep my business going (much like the bank, those tellers have NO idea, who or what that next customer may be about, what if i simply tested their generosity weekly to see if they were a good fit for me, and they turned me away after 2 or 3 times of making simple coin exchanges, since that would be the simplest transaction and a way for me to gauge their attitude).

Your second bold item makes sense, but they are all business costs. I dont open my doors not expecting to have start-up costs and operational costs....business 101. But that plays very little role in keeping say an extra $5,000 on hand in cash and coins for change purposes, especially knowing that if a business runs out of change and needs your help there may come a day that an account is opened at that bank. The vault is a part of their start-up cost. No bank opens without some sort of security involved. So they shouldnt be making their customers pay for minor usage on something they use it for already, plus there is also SDBs that help cover that cost as well, among all of their other circus money making schemes banks use.

Your next bold area is arguable too. You could say since this is OUR specific area of interest that there is a much higher concentration of folks actually using these types of services for their hobby gains on this website (and similar) than in real life. You just dont know and i bet their isnt a statistic out there that can be shown to actually tell us how many non account holders get change from any given bank, let alone a particular branch. Theres likely internal info on that, but i doubt any public information is available so its ALL speculation.

To the comment about us having trouble getting serviced. That has never been the case. Our town is relatively small so everyone knows my father and myself, which is nice when you do need something in an emergency. Plus we also have several accounts around town because like my hypothetical earlier, we do not like to mix our personal, and various business accounts across banks. Im a third, my father a Jr, and grandfather a Sr. so we have always used different banks as to avoid confusion. Plus we have a couple of businesses besides our retail market. We operate a sizable yearly dollar amount restaurant attached to our retail market, so we keep those accounts separate. Just a simple case of what i demonstrated earlier. Now my local Bank of America branch is closing in 2 weeks (worst customer service for a national bank, but our branch was wonderful), so where do i give that nice account to? Surely not the one who has ever ONCE hassled me for some change or minor service, and this is precisely why the banks shouldnt do that, because my choice largely depends on my treatment. Sure you can say my half million dollar+ account doesnt matter to them, but i would know you are lying. Every bank in my town has tried to get that business, from the little banks to the large banks, they all want it, so even that little amount must make them something or they wouldnt try for it. So why should i give bank XYZ the time of day if they couldnt help me out on a Monday for change when i forgot all the other normal banks were closed for a small holiday like MLK day that we dont really pay attention to in the first place, but the normal banks observed. Nope bank TUV got it after i had to leave XYZ when i needed help.

You see when all of you guys are speculating on what should and shouldnt be done in YOUR eyes, you dont ever stop to think that these situations occur in real life. My life is a great example of this, and I may very well be the exception to what I am trying to get across, but my point is that teller has no idea who they are dealing with and should make the effort to accommodate anyone, as they never know who they are talking to. You are right they DO represent the bank, and are usually people's first impression when dealing with a bank so they SHOULD make every conceivable effort to win new business for their company, and the banks shouldnt be shooting themselves in the foot over petty change and small services. You would think i was a bum most of the time based on my work attire, afterall its a fish market and clothes get torn, discolored, wet and nasty constantly so i dont always 'dress up' when grabbing change, so you just never know who you are dealing with, nor would they suspect a 25 year old to be making these large business decisions, but here I am living proof. All you guys have is pure speculation. At the end of the day, you are right, i do not have any problems with any of our local banks as i said, most know us and we DO have or had accounts there. My point is they shouldnt turn folks away for some change when its the simplest function the bank does, and is easy enough to accomplish. The potential for a new client is what used to make all of that worth it, but they are so greedy now and have so much money (but ya know lots of banks failed a couple years ago, right? Who bailed them out?) that we are just nuisances to their money making ability (schemes). If they were serious about making money, more banks would take care of their customers instead of trying to CHEAT them constantly. Instead we see fees for this, fees for that, interest rates going up for little or no reason, term changes, exploitation of folks for loans to make them money, high risks for easy money deals, and the list goes on, i mean we even have national banks foreclosing on homes that were paid off.

This whole thread is just another reason why we should keep our eyes on banks. Greed, greed, greed, greed, and more greed.

In fact, my belief is ANY bank that EVER took any money from the government, be it for TARP or any other reason, has a DUTY to accommodate ANY and EVERY us citizen that requests a minor service, because without Joe Blow the tax-payer they likely couldve failed.

http://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list

Is YOUR bank on that list, cause most of the big national names are!

 

Okay, again, rather than break it up...

 

I've read your comments and have thought some things over. I can't do much typing from my phone but your whole philosophy is built around the idea that nothing should be free it seems. Every single cost, every single tiny piece of everything has to be quantified and collected on, which I get. I don't necessarily agree with it because sometimes things should or can be done free. I absolutely have used my time to help someone clean fish that they did not purchase from me happened this morning in fact, no charge. Maybe it was a dumb business decision, then again maybe they buy fish from me the next time they don't catch anything.

But maybe I do just expect too much out of folks and I generally practice doing kind things with no desire for a 'return' other than wishing to see other people use a little more kindness and respect towards one another.

I appreciate your response and despite what you may think I did take some information away from what you wrote. At this point though, I can't really respond fully and it's probably best to just drop this argument and agree to disagree. We are coming from complete opposite directions and this discussion doesn't need to continue to degrade when the direct topic doesn't even apply to me (like I said I/we have no issues with making change, we've thoroughly covered our bases there, AND I don't CRH, so therefore I do not dump at banks).

I can't continue to play the devils advocate anymore with this topic, you are too thorough and I am ill equipped with just my iPhone and not actually caring enough about this whole notion anyway.

Happy collecting

 

Do you, like Safeway, allow customers to ask your aisle attendants to open up a product so they can sample it?

Do you, like Costco, give full refunds on empty containers of food when the customer is dissatisfied?

Do you, like my local market, offer a 200% money back guarantee on your fresh produce, deli, hot meal, meats and seafood products?

 

For what it's worth, the TARP/TALF lists are somewhat useless information. Nearly all financial institutions, even those with no foreseeable issues, applied for the money. Why? Well, they're financial institutions. They're in the business of servicing money. Since the government was offering free money, who WOULDN'T apply? I know for a fact that my firm applied for TARP and was denied. We expected to be denied, since we had about $100B in net assets at the time, but we applied anyway. WHY? Again, the government was giving away free money, and it would have been a HUGE disservice to shareholders to not even try.

 

I appreciate your candor. Let me ask you, how often do you do that? Not often enough that it cuts into your profits would be my guess. I see what what you're saying, but you compare apples to oranges. Let's look at it from this perspective:

In the town where I live there is a small pharmacy run by the owner. Mom and Pop type of operation. Owner is the head pharmacist and is there every day. There are also two large chain pharmacies within two miles. I actually use the small one. Why? because I have seen the man give credit simply because he saw someone was a little short of cash. He has eaten insurance co-pays because he knew that particular customer couldn't afford it. He hires kids to deliver to the customers who can't get out and pick up their medications. None of this is available at the chain stores. His weekend hours are virtually non-existent, and his prices for non-prescription items is higher than the chain stores. But he stays in business, and does what he does, because he is the owner, and is in there most of the time it's open. He makes the decisions regarding the business. The employees at the chain stores, however, all work for somebody else, even the store managers, and are bound by corporate policies and rules. They have to comply in order to keep their jobs. I'm not arguing what role corporate greed plays in any of this, that would turn this into a political discussion which would end it very quickly. The banks in question were mostly large "chain" bank branches (BoA, Wells Fargo, etc). We're jumping on the tellers (and yes, there have numerous derogatory comments toward tellers) when all they (the tellers) are doing is following corporate policy and being the bearer of bad news, all the while trying to keep their jobs.