Beware of Bank Coin Counting Machines

I have posted before of a situation that I have been having with a local bank and their coin counters. Once I was cashing in a bunch of half dollars and I heard coins drop without being counted. I convinced them to open it up and 11 of my half dollars were in the inside reject tray. Yes INSIDE REJECT TRAY. In fact these machines have two.
So all your rejected coins are likely not being returned.
A tv station once did an investigation and 13 of 14 machine cheated them. A family saved up $448 for a vacation but were credited with only $404.
This happened to me twice more and I was in contact with the Vice President who had the machines cleaned and serviced but ignored my inquiries to why there are internal reject trays. I once asked an employee or my coins and they refused, saying they had to be “audited”.
Well yesterday I dumped some coins at one location. I thought I heard coins dropping but decided to ignore it. But my receipt didn’t print and they opened up the machine and it was full of coins including 5 of the half dollars I had in the box. I tried to snap a picture and they blocked me. I did manage to retrieve a few of my coins but doubt I got them all.
Free money for them. Foreign coins can be exchanged as can damaged coins.

 

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At least you got a photo of their ring and wristwatch. Thst employee can be identified and may have some serious questions to answer.

 

Might I ask what bank you were using @Chip Kirkpatrick?

 

I'm surprised they didn't throw you out for trying to take a photo inside the bank, especially a photo that depicts (a) bank equipment or layout and (b) an employee.

 

Stories like this just disturb the heck out of me. I must be very fortunate to have a bank that is very attentive. A couple years back I had their lobby ATM machine shorted me a twenty on a withdrawl. I told her and she immediately went inside the machine and in just a few minutes, I had my twenty. I feel bad for you guys that have to deal with this kind of service. It's uncalled for.

 

There's a reason why many banks got rid of these machines

 

VYSTAR

 

One last point, they do not accept rolled coins. You have to use the machine

 

this was not my first run in with this employee who is the manager. On a previous visit I had a similar issue. Coins had dropped but there were a half dozen in the outside reject tray. I picked them up and immediately threw them on the floor. They were blazing hot! So hot a half dollar gave me a blister. I picked it up again and handed it to a teller who also dropped it because it was so hot. well they wanted me to go to another room and fill out an accident report and I wanted to collect my coins and this woman literally threw herself in front of me to block me and I told her I wasn’t moving until I got my coins. It was a true standoff but I won. The next day I received a call from a senior VP and he apologized for her behavior and informed me he had counseled her. Otherwise you’re right, they would have thrown me out.

 

Wow this is big news..
I'm having a bit of a hard time understanding this last post though.

 

the one at my CU works accurately for me, I don't know if it has an "inside reject tray" but I know exactly how much I'm dumping and it's always right,,,, or a tiny bit more. I usually count as I'm hunting, mostly to see if I am getting shorted or accounting for foreigns or damaged coins. I've been screwed with short rolls many more times than any coin machine I've used. Biggest shortage was a $500 box of quarters being short $25.00 between straight up missing coins and about $6.00 canadian. almost rolls short, spread out over the entire box every roll was short 1 or 2 or 3 quarters 24 rolls had a canadian ender, I guess to offset what they did. It wasn't a glued box though was given to me opened already.... part of the game I guess....

The one catch on my dump sorter is the ramp to the coin return can sometimes hang up a rejected coin, I've knocked lose a nickle or a dime and it comes out with my rejected quarter, same goes for the sorter in the machine, I believe occasionally a dime or nickel will get hung up because I usually dump quarters and the count will be off and I assume I knocked loose something that was hung up in the sorter.

It's a good machine, however I noticed if someone has a lot of dimes it will jam up and need to be reset, and it will jam up again and again, so I don't dump dimes. It don't like dimes.

yeah, banks don't like anyone taking pictures of anything that has a lock on it. Pretty much no cameras from the front door onward.

 

I had been saving up State quarters and ATB quarters for quite a while; decided to go through them and save only the ones I wanted for an album. Took the first batch of State quarters in but weighed them first (80 to a pound). A rough weighing by stepping on the bathroom scale gave me 21 pounds. But when I cashed them in I was about $20 short of what I expected. Wish I had weighed them in smaller batches on my kitchen scale.

However, when I took the ATB quarters in the kitchen scale indicated I should have $122. The total from the bank was $126.

Win a few, lose a few. But I wish I had known there was a reject box. I SHOULD have known it, as when I'm in Arizona I always check the CoinStar reject boxes.

Steve

 

Well now I am wondering...... I roll my change. I have a little sorter on by bedroom dresser. When it fills, I roll them. When I have so many rolls of coins that the bedroom floor is sagging, I take them to the bank. Is it the norm these days to rely on a bank sorting machine to do the counting now?

 

@Randy Abercrombie, the small town banks I did business with in the past would accept customer-wrapped rolls, but that has not been the case for years with the banks in the larger cities.

Steve

 

I always weigh mine so I know exactly what the total is.

 

Not anymore. It was for a long time, but there was a class-action lawsuit against them due to their inaccuracies and many banks and credit unions removed them as they weren't worth the hassle.

 

@baseball21, was that lawsuit within a particular state or group of states? The bank I'm dealing with is in Minnesota and they rely on their counting machine all the time.

Steve

 

Bank brands still make their own individual decisions if they want to have them or not as they aren't illegal, but many of the national banks and credit unions removed those customer usage counting machines. Aside from the inaccuracies they also cost the banks money having to have the machines serviced etc

 

Where can you exchange foreign coins?

 

Sounds like a job for the FBI!