I had the craziest experience today. I took $200 worth of coin roll rejects to one of my banks and deposited them in their coin machine. As the receipt was coming out of its slot I reached in to grab the 7-8 coins that had fallen into the rejects tray. When I grabbed them I had a strong flash of pain. I said something unrepeatable and threw the coins on the floor. It felt like I had grabbed broken glass, sharp metal, jellyfish / Portuguese Man O’ War sting or a nasty electrical shock. VERY painful. I looked around on the floor and in the rejects tray trying to figure out what had attacked me. But there was nothing there. I knelt down and picked up one of my thrown half dollars and promptly dropped it again. THE COIN WAS HOT! Hot enough to have just come out of a fire. I carry my coins in a plastic ammunition box and I held it up to the rejects tray and quickly scraped the remaining coins into the box. Then I went back to the coins on the floor. I scooped up one of the half dollars and was doing a “Hot potato” routine of bouncing it up and down in my hand until it cooled. A teller looked out of her window about 15 feet away and asked if anything was wrong. I handed her the Kennedy and said “Hold this” and dropped it in her hand. She promptly dropped it and said “That thing is HOT!” Now the branch management was called. They found me soaking my aching hand in the water fountain where the water was cold. The manager, a woman, wanted me to do an accident report and I agreed. But she was trying to orchestrate this and wanted me to go with her supervisor, a man, to a private office but I wasn’t budging until they opened the machine up. She was refusing but I insisted. I told her something was malfunctioning and maybe half of my coins were in that machine, uncounted. Plus I was afraid it might be on fire. That heat didn’t just materialize. She literally was blocking me from the machine with her body but I wasnt giving in. Finally she starts to open the machine but tells me there are coins in there but she can’t concede they may be mine. When the lid lifted there was indeed a handful of coins strewn all through the machine. In fact there were TWO reject trays inside, both with coins. They had probably been there a while because of the dust but who knows. as she started to close the lid I asked why all of those coins didn’t go into the outside reject tray so the customers could retrieve them. She faltered and finally said, “ Because. They just don’t...” WHAT?????? Those coins still have value and they are stealing it from the rightful owners. To be continued. This happened about 10 hours ago and the pain has subsided to the level of a wasp sting. There is a long narrow blister beneath my middle finger. HAS ANYBODY EVER EXPERIENCED THIS OR KNOW ANYBODY WHO HAS HAD THE SAME THING HAPPEN? I’d like to know about it.
A lawsuit would earn you more money than your lost coins. But then we might not be able to use coin counting machines at our banks ever again.
Wow. I thought maybe they were just trying some operant conditioning against CRHers by connecting the reject box to the power line. It sounds like a minor burn, but under the circumstances I'd take the opportunity for a free (paid by the bank) doctor visit. In fact, I hate lingering pain enough that I'd be tempted to try to call down trouble on the bank and/or the machine provider, although I'm not sure which agencies would have jurisdiction for this...
Sue the living daylights out of them, Chip! The instant that branch mrg. asked you to fill out that accident report, you were in the money. Though the physical harm may have been slight, the emotional trauma and stress that you endured was almost too much to put into words......though I am sure your legal team will come up with their fair share. I honestly don't know how you can put a price tag on the pure terror that had to have reverberated throughout your entire body as you nonchalantly and innocently reached your hand into the coin machine's reject tray and then wham!!! I think Chip's own words say it best....."it felt like I had grabbed broken glass, sharp metal, jellyfish/ Portuguese Man O' War sting, or a nasty electrical shock. VERY Painful!" Those words of Chip may very well inflict the most profound effect on a judge and jury since Carolyn Polhemus' eerily haunting courthouse words in that Harrison Ford movie "Presumed Innocent", of "My mommy hit my head......my mommy hit my head....my mommy hit my head". I wish Godspeed to you, Chip. Go get him tiger!
Really odd Must be that microwave sterilization gone awry ... Something that hot would melt rubber and plastic ...
That's the trouble with this country today. Make a mountain out of a molehill and cash in to sympathetic jurors misled by unscrupulous, and ambulance chasing lawyers. One has to be bloody blasted politica......I won't go on.
Contact the machine builders or at the very least, higher up the banks food chain. I've never heard of anything like that.
In fact there were TWO reject trays inside, both with coins. They had probably been there a while because of the dust but who knows. Why would there be two reject trays?
Why would there be ANY reject tray INSIDE the machine? A rejected coin should be returned to the rightful owner of said coin. Not the bank.
Unfortunately, that’s why many bystanders who can help victims choose not to, or at least refuse to be recognized for their help. Too many idiot narcissists who are all too happy to sue the very people who saved their lives.
There is usually two reject bins. One for the customer to get back bad coins, etc. and (supposedly) an internal one that gathers all the oddities that the screen can't handle which may be really large coins (like Ike Dollars) or bent and heavily damaged stuff, or when the feeding pile is too large and doesn't process correctly through the screens. I haven't seen pictures or anything though. although ... searching for users guides https://www.cumminsallison.com/us/en/downloads/file/Money-Machine-2-Bin-Models-User-Guide.pdf here's coinstars patent. there's a waste management process for waste, slugs, etc http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6047807.pdf
Other than the exorbitant fee they charge (their right to do so), this internal reject bin is just another reason to never use a CoinStar machine. If the internal mechanism to screen the items inserted into the counter rejects ANYTHING, it should be returned to the depositor.
TD bank inherited its (Penny Arcade brand) coin sorting/counting machines from Commerce Bank when those two merged - they got complaints of short-changing and removed the machines in 2016. OP should determine the manufacturer of the faulty machine and do some research about malfunctions that might raise the internal temperature (i.e. blocked cooling vent, incorrect lithium battery installed, cooling fan failure, etc.) - make inquiries of the manufacturer (if in the USA - many are Chinese, in which case you may have communication problems) and see if they can offer an explanation - hold off on the lawsuit until you gather some background info - the accident report from the bank should be on file before you proceed - hope your finger avoided any serious damage & good luck with your 'case', if you choose to pursue a legal remedy - maybe small claims court for recovery of medical costs
No charge at my CU to use the coin machine. And yes Coin Star has an internal reject bin, I have seen a guy servicing it. Mostly there were bent up and destroyed pennies and dimes. I couldn't tell if any of the dimes were silver. But there was a very nice undamaged Eisenhower large dollar coin. He gave me this Marge Simpson pressed coin which was in there as well.
LAW SUIT? Who said anything about a law suit? I’m curious about what happened. And I am pissed at how many coins the public is having siphoned off. Is that SOP in the banking industry.
Haven't you heard about Wells Fargo or BofA and all their shadiness? The banking industry's SOP is making money at any cost. I doubt they any qualms about skimming a few coins off the top of someone's cash-in.