Warrant issued for man trying to pay w/ pennies

When these nuisance things come before court trials they tend to rule in favour of the organisation or individual refusing the cents. If you have ever worked in retail you will have at one time or another experienced someone paying like this - most of the time people like kids do it because they saved the money over a period of time and are just getting around to spending it. But when someone wants to create a nuisance by paying in small coins etc. it is generally opined that they are only trying to be a nuisance and the payment can only be accepted in a regularly understood form.

I am not aware of any laws in the USA regulating legal tender amounts on coinage, I know they exist in many countries like Britain where pennies are legal tender only up to 20p. I don't believe there is a clear cut case in the USA that one could cite as definitive on this subject.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

With the age of Identity theft, and the fact the guy did go to the bank and get the rolls (And i'm assuming he got a Brinks Box plus a couple of spare rolls), why ask for a DL#?? I find it even more stupider that I encounter coin wraps with full Account #'s on them, some from major businesses.

All I need theoretically is the bank, some withdrawl forms, and an ATM card, and I could deplete someone's account within minutes if i'm lucky to get one with a balance of more than a grand.

 

You, my friend, were first in my thoughts (LOL)

 

I have been told that it was a common practice when accepting rolled coins that couldn't be verified to write some kind of ID information on them. The reason I know this is because we had some older customers at the bank I used to work at come in and they had written their phone number on every roll. They had been told to do so in years past because the roll would eventually be counted and if it wasn't correctly filled...that the bank needed to be able to trace where the rolls came from. These days, that particular bank simply brakes open all rolls it gets from customers and runs them through the machine...so it's no longer necessary. But, my guess is this is why they had the guy do it. Just in case he shorts them a cent or two...they know who did it.

 

Richie, I remember doing precisely this same thing when I was younger.. You had to basically put your life's story on that roll....

 

What? We don't use half cents. Never have.

 

I believe scottishmoney is correct. As far as I can tell there is no law prohibiting the amount of pennies you are allowed to spend at one time. I also believe that businesses are required to honor legal US tender unless they state it before hand. Good for all debts.

All the same, I also agree that people who DO something like trying to pay rent with pennies are just looking to cause a ruckus...mom might not have given them enough attention...dont have anything better to do, etc...

 

The coins were wrapped. I would have accepted it. No big deal.

If he brought in a barrel of unwrapped pennies, I could understand it.

It seems to me like a bunch of government employees who dont want to work.

 

I'm not sure but I think there are laws or used to be laws that say you can't pay government debts in change. For example you can't send the IRS change. If he wanted to dispute the ticket he should of asked for a court date. Hopefully he got his 15 minutes and he's happy. I wouldn't have risked having a warrant and having to pay (in my area) $300 more for my principles.

 

How can you be sure the correct amount is in the rolls?

 

They were machine wrapped rolls in bank box. It was obvious that he got pennies from a bank.

If it turned out to be a different amount, I would just call him and say he still owes x number of cents.

 

Ahhh, this is true. Here is a great example that happened to me last weekend at a local bank.


I took in a box of change to dump in the coin machine. (free to those that have an account, I do/did)

In the reject slot there was about 20 cents, a couple of nickels and a few dimes rejected. All Canadian. I thought no big deal they are common here in SE Michigan.

I go to the counter to turn in my ticket for bills and ask the teller to take the less than a dollar in Canadian for me. She said sorry we cant do that we don't accept Canada's money because of the exchange rate. I said you dont take them but you give them out? She told me they didnt, I responded can I have a roll of pennies please. She sold me a roll and I opened them right there at the counter with a very ticked off teller at this point watching. I pulled 3 Canadian Cents from the roll and asked to speak to a manager. Well things got kinda ugly at that point. They even offered to call the police since I was causing a "disturbance". I offered my cell phone to call on. : )

In the end they gave me 3 new pennies for the Canadian ones that were in the roll, and a boatload of cash from the two business accounts and 3 personal accounts that I promptly closed. The CEO of the bank and the board have all received emails from me and I did happen to mention it to the local prosecutors office. They are looking into the issue as well now. We shall see where this one goes.

All I wanted to do was turn in some change that I have received in change or bank rolls so I could buy more rolls to search.

 

They should have just said to the guy, "Thank you! We really need these!" Then just let him walk out thinking he had wasted his time.

 

I guess the tellers in my bank like me. They will take Canadian coins, and change it one for one for American cash. But they also save good stuff for them, and curiously they say I am doing them a favour by taking all their $2's, Ikes, Half Dollars. We do get a lot of Canadian coins in change here, we are fairly close to Canada. I like getting the YH QEII coins and even the occasional GVI cents in change. I got a GVI just yesterday, a 1952.

 

It depends on the bank. The bank I worked for would not exchange Canadian coins because they aren't legal tender in the US...period. Would an occasional Canadian cent get found in one of our rolls...yeah. They are machine wrapped and they sometimes slip through the cracks. It happens. We had one of our business customers get upset one time about it, but in the end she understood. It does seem kind of hypocritical that you might find some in the bank rolls and the bank won't take them...but that's just the way it is at most banks.

I'd imagine a bank in a boarder state (especially a town close the boarder) might have different policies too.

We did exchange foreign paper money from some countries for a fee. But, not coin.

 

Cash is cash. I really don't see what their problem is, other than the mild annoyance. If they didn't want the bother of counting cash in any form, then they need to stop accepting it.
Guy~

 

Oh, I think they should have taken it...absolutely. But, here's the thing. Every cent would need to be verified...which of course would take time. Assuming, like many government buildings, things probably aren't overly efficient. So, he'd have to wait until someone could see him. Then, they would need to count every cent to make sure it was all there...while he was there. And heaven forbid they miscount and have to re-verify.

That's what I would have done. I would have accepted it...but he would have been there all day.

 

Some businesses here will accept Canadian cash, right now they would accept it at 75% so a bit of a fee built in, but usually better than exchanging it at the border. That is sort of how I ended up with the pile of older Canadian cash awhile back, a business took it - then deposited in their bank which I also bank at.

 

Sounds like my kind of guy. I once made a bank pay me $50,000 in twenties because they wouldn't deposit a check for me. Then I claimed they miss counted and made them count it out again. All this with about 40 people behind me on the line. Overall the transaction took over 4 hours...

He should have made the count $20 short...

Ruben

 

I'm surprised they were willing to do that. Many banks have a limit as to how much cash you can withdraw at any given time without prior notice (usually a weeks notice). Plus, if they refused to deposit it...I'm shocked they would cash it.