Legality of banks opening up their coin counting machines

I had a pretty sweet deal with a local credit union. I would go in every week and they'd open up their coin counting machine. It is the "spinning disc with narrow chute and strong magnet" type, but different than a CoinStar. I would donate all Canadian coins to non-profits in upstate New York, etc. and they'd let me keep the rest.

Then today, the lady tells me that "the Guy" who cleans/empties/services the machine every week asked her why it was empty. She told him and he said that they weren't allowed to do that.

I understand that the Coin Machine Company "owns" the machine and the bank/credit union is simply renting/leasing it.

However, the bank/credit union obviously has a key in case someone wants to retrieve something that they legitimately put in by mistake, to clear jams, etc.

This leads to my question: who actually owns the coins that get caught in the magnetic reject catcher?

 

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That is a great question. Since the CU or bank pays the coin machine owner a fee for machine and processing coins, I would say the bank owns the coins until they are reimbursed for coins actually removed from the machine. The coins deposit by a customer are reimbursed by the bank thus transferring ownership from customer to bank. Thus why if something happens to the machine during processing, a message on coinstars say YOUR coins are safe, please contact a bank associates for assistance. So as soon as the bank pays you for the coins minus a fee to process, the asset is transferred to the bank. The coins become an asset of the bank, since the processor has not emptied the machine. Not until the machine has been emptied by the processor do the coins transfer ownership.
I think coin machine "guy" was doing his own search of coins and capture of rejects, and found he was being short "changed"

 

The real answer is, or isn't, in the contract that the bank/CU signed for leasing/renting the machine.

 

If I were you, I'd forget about it. You still have the opportunity to get various coins and/or rolls from the tellers don't you? If you push the issue about the coin machine, you're likely to lose out completely.

Chris

 

@cpm9ball, I've not had much luck asking tellers for customer-wrapped rolls, "old coins", etc.

 

Did the bank actually tell you that they're just leasing the machine from a third party and the bank itself doesn't own it? All banks that I've known to have coin machines have bagged up and shipped the coins out themselves. It sounds like yours does it a bit differently.

I think the issue is the maintenance guy felt jaded that there weren't any reject coins for him to look through and pocket himself, which he is likely quite used to doing throughout the region that he services.

 

Maybe it is because it is a credit union rather that a regular bank. Who knows!

Chris

 

These are all great replies... thank you.

I will stop and talk to the manager later this week to verify that they are, in fact, leasing the machine. If she seems in a good mood, I may also ask her to double-check the contract/agreement to see what the actual paperwork has to say.

This may require some donuts...

 

If you know the brand and local leasing agent (usually there's a big sticker on devices of who to call in case of problems), you can easily search online of what the options are.

For example, this one place has 3 coin processing options. So it would entirely depend on how they acquired their machine. Click on "Option" below for more detail ==> http://www.cumminsallison.com/us/en/products/coin-counting-machines/ssc-programs

 

Just be careful how far you push it. There is a thing called Business Interference, whereby a third party messes up a contractual relationship between two parties.

 

could always create your own company to lease your own coin sorting machines ... oh the possibilities.

 

Your lucky they did that for you, they only did it once and it was a surprise to me but that was it

 

You can certainly ask the manager to verify that they will no longer allow you to do this. Asking about a private contract is way out of line and if I were in her position I would refuse to answer that.

 

At my credit union all those coins go into the "over/under" slush account, they try to distribute the Canadian through withdrawals, I get the Ikes and silver and older foreign.

 

I think, barring some specific line in the lease contract stating otherwise, that the rejects "belong" to the owner of the machine. My reasoning is this:

The lease agreement involves a maintenance contract, apparently. This contract likely involves the bank receiving the deposit proceeds of the machine (the exact count), while the machine owner is responsible for sorting through whatever garbage is in the trap/chute.

It doesn't make sense for the bank to "empty" the trap while not cleaning out the chute. It's entirely possible that the owner/service tech was concerned due to an issue with technical adjustments that the placement of things and how that affects the counting mechanisms.

The bank *might* have a key for the specific reason of someone dropping jewelry, keys or something else into the hopper by mistake or for emptying the primary collection tray (the "counted" side). Either way, there's no logical reason for the bank to claim "ownership" over the abandoned property, let alone to give the items to a customer.

 

This seems reasonable with one possible problem. Is the person who dumped in the coins being credited with the rejects as if they were regular US coins? If not and they are not returned but simply go into the reject bin, I would say they belong to the person that dumped in the coins. They have been taken away from him with no compensation.

 

I thought about that and this was how I reasoned it out:

If the individual doesn't request the rejects (checks the reject bin), they're abandoning the property. Even in that case, the bank doesn't own the property and has no basis for giving the item to a third party customer.

 

I'm curious if some of the machines out there have the reject bin *inside* of the machine away from customer access, versus the ones I've seen at my CU which has a reject bin in the front for customer access.

looks like this example has 2 bins. One inside, and another that has customer access @ 1:15 ==> http://www.cumminsallison.com/products/show_video/7194/1103

 

@Clawcoins, I'm not sure I understand your question, but the one at my credit union does not have a reject bin that the customer can access... at ALL. The only method of keeping non-US coins out of the hopper/sorter is a big magnet. If it somehow gets past that, it will just keep going 'round and 'round, making a horrible racket.

I've also heard rumors that CoinStar machines have an internal reject tray in addition to their external one.

 

The ones at a couple of my credit unions are similar, they have internal reject slots for "non coin" and external for coin rejects. But Ikes, silver etc occasionally end up in the internal "non coin" slot. Which is how I end up with them because of my friendly tellers.