My CRH'ing days are over :-(

Any luck?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Well many banks (including mine) ALREADY designate certain customers as having a platinum service account based on maintaining a higher balance. So the situation ALREADY exists where some customers get more free services than others, and yet I don't see the less "privileged" customers walking away in droves. Also, this has nothing to do with "privilege". If I go to a restaurant I don't consider it a "privilege" to get my food cooked the way I want it. And when I am a customer at a bank that exists to provide FINANCIAL services, I don't consider it a "privilege" for them to make change for me when I am PAYING them for these services. Certainly if a customer is "overdoing it" by asking for excessive amounts of coins I don't have a problem with a bank manager putting some type of limit on it. But to tell a paying customer that they will no longer make change for them AT ALL is terrible service and if my bank ever did that I would take my business elsewhere. Now if you are talking about walking into a grocery store or other institution, that is different. They don't claim to provide financial services so if they are willing to provide change to you then yes that is a privilege.

 

It doesn't cost at a restaurant any more to cook a steak medium va medium rare. There is, however, a cost associated when banks start ordering boxes for people. There is also a significant difference between making change and ordering boxes or accepting hundreds of not thousands of dollars in coins. Most people who have boxes ordered have business accounts that cover such necessities. Now, if the person is a specific customer that the bank offers those privileges (in writing) to, then I agree. But when a bank arbitrarily allows and disallows privileges based on arbitrary things, it becomes an issue. I think that's what he was hitting on. Just because an institution doesn't give someone what they want, doesn't mean they're giving bad service. I guess I could go into mcdonalds and ask for a free milkshake because "I spend money there often and they owe it to me." If you think that idea sounds ridiculous, then so should you think it when someone goes I to a bank and demands boxes be ordered for free.

 

I think @steve63 should buy a bank and find out for himself.

Chris

 

Sorry, I'm not feeling any sympathy for these banks. The CEO of my bank makes $1.5 million a year. Not to mention my tax dollars went to help bail them out not too long ago. I'm not saying banks shouldn't set limits on how many boxes people can order or how often (I don't buy boxes myself...I usually just get 10-15 rolls each time I go to the bank). What I'm addressing is some of the new policies I've heard where banks have simply refused to deal with coins at all. That's simply ridiculous. You act like these institutions are hurting and customers just expect too much from them. This has nothing to do with "privilege" it's about banks and customers forging a relationship that is mutually beneficial for both parties. Of course I realize a bank is in the business to make money. But to make money they need customers willing to give them their money. If a bank ever refused to give me 10 or 15 rolls of coins I would be gone in a heartbeat and it would be their loss. A smart bank wants to keeps it's customers. If some customers are abusing their "privileges" by expecting too many coin transactions, then the bank should simply set limits or add a fee over a particular limit. But when I hear about banks making "no coins" policies I think that is a BAD decision. And the fact that so few banks will go that far proves my point.

 

Do you remember the days when 103 octane gas was 30c? When you pulled up to the pumps, the gas station attendant not only put gas in your car, but cleaned the windshield, filled the radiator and checked the air pressure in the tires?

When the cost of doing business goes up, what do you do?

Chris

 

If you think "no coins" is drastic, wait until the "War on Cash" gains some traction, like it has in Sweden and Austria, and now perhaps even Canada.

Right now, ALL of us should be vetting candidates for the 2018 mid-term elections, finding out who will reliably vote against this nutty, grossly-inconvenient, surveillance-enabling boondoggle.

I have not read whether the "idea" includes both currency and coins, or just paper money. Best you not invest in vending machine companies; they'll be retrofitting for years.

 

Any bank certainly has a right to do whatever they want. My point is not that a bank doesn't have a right to deny coin transactions, it's that it is NOT unreasonable for a customer to expect them. And a smart bank would not lose customers over it. I can't imagine there are that many coin hunters out there. My guess is that all it takes is one or two coin roll hunters that are abusing such a service to cause a bank to issue some draconian policy about coins. If I were a bank manager and I had a few customers who were crossing the line I'd simply set a limit (you only get xxx rolls or boxes per month, after that you pay a fee).

 

I think the war on cash is going to have a much harder time gaining traction in the US. Americans are just far more suspicious about institutional power than are Europeans or Canadians. They also don't like being told they must do something because the rest of the world is doing it. Back in the 70s, there was a strong movement to get the US to convert to the metric system, but the public outcry against it was so great that here we are decades later just about the only country in the world that still doesn't use it. I'm not saying a cashless society will never happen, but it's going to be a much tougher sell here in the US than it would be in other parts of the world and politicians know that.

 

Steve, I hope you're right. Problem is, it will be IMPOSED ON US by a desperate government.

We didn't have any choice(s) on the income tax, or the draft, or the Vietnam Sunday picnic, or Supreme Court justices, or speed limits, or the Cuban embargo, etc., etc. Bottom line, it means the government will track every dime, know where it came from, and what you spent it on, and they can freeze your assets, or grab overdue payments with one keystroke. It's diabolical.

Chase Bank, one of the co-conspirators, has already "ruled" that new accounts cannot store cash in their SDBs. Acid Test: Ask a teller what a "S.A.R." is -- (suspicious activity report). Report the results here.

And there's other preliminary steps kicking around that we never hear about in the mainstream media. Almost forgot, the 1% LOVE this idea. That alone should make you queasy.

 

I'm trying to figure out your angle here. Did you own a bank? Why are you so hard on the cr hunters?

 

"We didn't have any choice(s) on the income tax, or the draft, or the Vietnam Sunday picnic, or Supreme Court justices, or speed limits, or the Cuban embargo, etc., etc."

Not sure what you mean when you say we had no choice. We chose to vote for the elected officials who implemented these things you mentioned. At the end of the day there still has to be the political will to introduce any major change. We won't be going cashless if politicians fear losing votes over such an issue. It all depends how many people care about the issue and how much they care.

 

And then there's the distinct possibility, all you CRH-er's, that the bank manager doesn't want your account, especially if he has to smooch the tush of every roll-fiddler that comes along.

My manager's simply happy that I vacuum up all the Canadian and foreign that they receive, and no, I don't need another lesson on the dire economics of swapping for Canadians. It is a SERVICE that I provide to the credit union, willingly.

Their success is my success, and someday if DHS walks in and says, "Mr. Manager, we need to screw 150 of your depositors. Here's what you have to do...," I hope I'm #151 on the list.

 

My main bank removed their coin counting machines. I have another bank that gladly takes them to their coin machines. I am transferring my money to make them my main bank now and will go through them to finance my next house.

 

Steve, politicians will promise you anything to get elected, and once sworn in, the committee chairmen and other government movers and shakers might just change their collective little pea-brains for them.

The no-choices I listed above (and there's a thousand more) happened regardless of who you voted for, or why.

 

Word choice exercise:

"who implemented..."

1. who promised to implement...
2. who expressed support for...
3. who planned to introduce legislation to...
4. who backtracked, saying, things are different now...
5. who succumbed to a reality check...
6. who, um, lied...
and so it goes in Foggy Bottom.

 

Yes, politicians break promises. But it still goes back to how much they think their constituents care. If resistance is strong enough, politicians will be wary of change. Right now I think resistance would be strong enough to prevent going cashless, but I'm not so sure about the long term prospects, especially when you think about the younger generation who have grown up in a totally online/digital world. We'll see.

 

Steve, I don't think the average politician gives the slightest thought what his constituents want, primarily because the average citizen has such a dog's breakfast of loony notions orbiting his brain that he can scarcely identify with one party or the other.

You've seen in the past 20 years that the major parties are splintering into smaller and smaller factions, and that a legislator must corral 51% of them to accomplish his goals or his constituents' goals. Once you walk back from the Constitution, anything goes.

 

No, I never owned a bank, but I'm not so naïve to think that people who expect certain services for free are in for a rude awakening. When a business is forced to make changes that are opposed by the customers, why is it always the fault of the business? You aren't old enough to experience the days of free services at gas stations.

Chris

 

So, you've created a hypothetical scenario where a bank does not deal in coins at all, when it used to. You used that hypothetical scenario to vent about banks and also somehow take an adversarial position despite actually agreeing with everything @cpm9ball said. Yes, a bank that does not deal in coins at all, when it previously did, is probably making a bad decision. Please name one. Otherwise, you've agreed with everything @cpm9ball so I don't see why this is dragging out.