Where do all the circulation coins go?

A large percentage of the population uses a credit card to pay for everything because they get cash back or some other type of reward at the end of the year. If you pay off your bill in full every month it makes perfect sense to do this. As far as the 3% merchant fees that's just the cost of doing business and it's necessary to stay competitive.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I understand when I was in business that percentage fee was built into the price all though I only paid 1.69% for transactions fees but at 3.00 there charging me 12% of my bill for paying cash so IMO thats wrong and now there losing a customer that they have had for 12 years.

But if you set up auto pay they will discount your phone bill 5.00 per month so I don't believe it has anything to do with transactions fees.

I believe they are trying to force there customers in signing up for auto pay but as a customer I should have the right to pay my bill anyway I choose and not be forced in to auto pay.

If they would have handled it differently I probably would have signed up for auto pay but when I'm basically being forced to pay auto pay or be penalized I think that's wrong.JMO
Dave

 

Change counters are getting/have been removed from the majority of banks and credit unions. They have been proven to be inaccurate and even the subject of some lawsuits. They proved to be more hassle than they were worth while also costing the banks money.

True but you can generally offer a cash/check discount to get around that law. One of the auction houses did that raising their rates than offering a discount for checks to tip toe around the no credit card fee law in their state.

 

What about foreign countries where the US dollar (although not supposed to circulate as currency) circulates freely, or on the black market.
Are they using US coinage as well?

 

MetroPCS started doing that years ago; at least locally here.

Also, with AutoPay the companies get their money when they want to. Rather than waiting for a customer who may make a late payment, or not pay at all and all the overhead associated with that. So they'll give a discount (like Verizon) if you sign up for autopay to try and minimize the collections aspect of monthly bills.

 

You speak as though coins are just sitting around waiting to be cashed in. Coins have never sat around much except back before 1972 and the FED switched to FIFO accounting. In those days coins often got stuck in the backs of warehouses for decades. This simply doesn't happen any longer and all the coins are in circulation and subject to wear, tear, and loss. You can prove this to yourself very easily. Just get a handful of a single older date coin and compare the grades. With coins that aren't wearing out and aren't circulating like pennies there will be a wide range of grades from VG to BU. Lucky coins escape circulation for long periods while a few do all the work. But this certainly isn't true for quarters. Virtually every single 1977 quarter will show a very similar amount of wear. They'll range from what I call VG+ to VF- while a coin that doesn't circulate like the '76 bicentennial will range from F to Unc. Circulating coins exist within a very narrow grade range because of FIFO accounting.

Circulation is hard on coins. Even individuals who don't use coins much tend to have a few around the house and they are subject to wear tear and loss. Cars on average have 6 quarters in them when they are scrapped. Only a couple of these will be retrieved and they are often damage by shredders or crushers. That's some 40,000,000 quarters a year just in recycled cars. Many of the rest are simply lost or accidently put in the garbage stream by myriad processes often involving vacuum cleaners.

Look at a handful of change; Now days you'll see nearly two thirds are state quarters. The old quarters are simply being lost or destroyed and every time one is it must be replaced by a spanking new parks quarter. Hence a mintage of at least 1 1/2 billion just to tread water.

 

What about raising your prices by 3% and offering a 3% discount if the customer pays with cash??

 

Well, we are talking about commercial construction bid work. Big numbers and terrifyingly low margins. I once had a discussion with my sister who owns a sporting goods store. She had to fire a salesman who was only generating a 50% profit.... I asked her for his name and number.

 

The new Zincolns will not last 25 years if they have ever been spent, or reside in a humid state.

 

True.

The amazing number of damaged zincon coins I get out of my local Coinstar is enough to buy several dollars worth of groceries every week or so. Couple that with what comes out of my wife's purse after she returns from a shopping spree, and my milk run ends up costing me the price of gas and the wear and tear on my car. In a single instance I've dumped more than $10 worth of coins into the self-service checkout slot at Walmart.

 

Gas stations used to offer discount for Cash payment.
Do they do that anymore ?

I know with Meijer, using their card, you get a 10% discount for gasoline/diesel. But they do that as most ppl do not pay off their CCs each month, which can more than make up in Finance Charges for the discount.

 

Bad money drives good money out of circulation. Clad coinage drove silver coins out of circulation. Even minor changes in designs drive coins out of circulation. Jefferson nickels drove out Buffalo nickels. Pre 1964 anything is very difficult to find in change. Look at today's nickels and try to find a pre '64. It's difficult. We all complain about Zinc cents but if the composition was changed to aluminum all the Zinc cents would soon be gone. And watch all those new cheap aluminum cents disappear when the cents are made of plastic. Yes, bad money drives good money out of circulation.

 

And let's not forget all of the coin rolling machines that squish a cent into an elongate shape and stamp a new design on it. That cent is gone forever. But it's legal to do that. Those cents must be replaced keep the wheels spinning.

 

What? Coins aren't cash?? Guess I'll have to rethink what I thought was cash.
But I've always heard you should pay cash for anything you can in order to keep from spending more than you can afford. Spending the cash (and coins) doesn't involve interest charges. And my wife likes to use her (coin) change in transactions to get cash (currency) back.

And just to be like everyone else here, I do have small coin hoards around the house, but not enough to break a dresser drawer!

 

I'm a believer in the idea that there's more lost money in the ground than there is in circulation.

 

If Jefferson nickels drove out Buffalo nickels with the same composition, and newer Jeffersons drove out older Jeffersons with the same composition AND design, haven't you just shot down your own point?

Looks like it's not just "good money driving out bad", but new money driving out old.

 

In barter?

By washing dishes?

It seems to me that they are letting you pay your bill any way you choose. They're just exercising their right to offer incentives for the methods they prefer (and disincentives for those they don't).

I'm a bit surprised, though, that the $3 fee is only for cash in-person transactions. Handling cash imposes additional costs on them, but it seems like the bigger cost would be in paying people to stand at a customer-service booth and deal with people who aren't willing to pay electronically. I'd expect it to be a $3 fee for in-person payment, whether you use cash, check, or charge.

 

zincolns that come from the ground are rotting away. Copper coins are merely tarnished. That missing cash value benefits the government so I predict even
more coins will be made that will disappear after being lost.

 

I understand but the fee is for cash customers that's what got me side ways I can pay credit or debit but sometimes when I'm in the area I'll stop and pay cash also that's how I updated my last two phones with them.

If I hadn't stopped in to the store to pay with cash I probably wouldn't have updated my phone.

Most customers that walk in are there to pay there phone bill or update I guess my whole point is that I feel penalized for using cash. JMO
Dave

 

The local gas company here for some reason does just the opposite. You can come into the or mail in your payment for the amount on the bill, or you can set up automatic electronic payments for just an additional $6 a month. electric company is similar, pay in person or by mail. Or you can pay over the phone electronically for an additional $5. Seems silly to me.