The Coinstar Conspiracy.

Did it ever occur to you why the Ike dollar might be kept by the machine because the machine is no designed to accept it in the counter because the darn thing hasn't been made for 34 years?

 

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Fair points sir, I just dislike the notion of them knowing they keep coins deposited. I don't think its right. Anything that the machine does not accept should go out in the external reject bin. I know they have a disclaimer, but disclaimers do not make poor behavior acceptable. Its like the Hardcore Pawn show, and they point how they have signs saying they are not responsible for damage of an item while its in pawn. That is total crud, if they are in control of something, you can dang sure know they are responsible. You can not post a sign to alleviate away your responsibility.

 

I don't pay the $.09 fee as I use the Coin Star in my credit union which is fee free to their members.:thumb:

 

When a pawn shop, even the one run by that gonif on Hardcore Pawn (whom I find to be utterly repulsive - his ugly daughter too!), takes an item in pawn, it creates a bailment and they are required to exercise "reasonable care" for said item.
They can put up all the signs they like but it doesn't change the law.

 

There definitely IS an internal reject bin... if you don't believe me drop an Ike dollar in the machine and see if you get it back...

 

There's an internal reject bin, but in my experience, the store has access to it.

There's also a magnet to catch slugs, which also catches 1943 cents, of course. I believe those normally stay in the machine until they're cleaned out.

Naturally, those looking for conspiracies can find them in CoinStar machines, as well as any other machine, business or organization in existence.

 

If you use a Coinstar or any other similar machine, you certainly aren't worried about what you're dumping in there if you're paying for the conveniece. I'm sure the measures they install in them are to prevent the company getting ripped off by people filling them with crap or foreign coins. The internal bin is probably intended as a garbage can so the garbage isn't out in the open.

The unfortunate result is that "collectible" coins may be rejected as garbage as well.

I say, too bad. If you use the machine for the convenience of not having to roll and you lose a coin or two, that's your fault. If I was to use it, it would only be for pennies. However, I'm not paying 10% (more or less) to do that.

 

I think the big debate here is that we, as professionals in the hobby, don't accept how these machines take anything remotely close as of numismatic value in a separate bin without the offer of giving those back to the customer. And I can completely understand. But the guy or gal who have a need of the service to count up change for paying a bill, gift money, or to store away in savings have a different take on the machine's usefulness. It's a time saver to these folks, so that .09 cents is a worthwhile fee to get the job done. Especially if you have coffee cans or bags full of change that equate to several hundred dollars. The actual percentage of the population that know about the coin hobby is an insanely minute percentage. I think most folks could care less as long as they get their paper money in return. The disclaimer is there, so pretty much those odd ball coins are fair game. Coin Star is a smart company that has a business model built around the fast paced, electronic lives of today.

 

All the more reason to never use a coinstar machine. Thank you Dectecto for pointing this out. Disclaimer be damned, if there is an Ike, steel washer, bus token, 40% half, or whatever mixed into someones change jug it should be returned; period. Otherwise, I'm calling it stealing. Who besides coin collectors really knows what an Ike dollar is.

 

I would be willing to bet that many thousands of dollars a year are kept from people who are not being paid for their coins. Some Congressional hearings should be launched into Coinstar not paying for or returning perfectly legal tender such as Ike dollars and steel cents, etc. Also, their absolute hammerlock on most locales should be investigated. Coinstars have taken over just about every grocery store in the country. There are other companies with their own counting machines who would like to grow their business but Coinstar has most every location locked out with contracts. This is nothing short of a monopoly.

 

I'm with you on that one brother, that's my major problem with these machines. Maybe not so much the machines as it is the actual human minds that developed the internal workings. It's ingenious but deceptive, I don't think anybody has bat an eye to complain yet...well, except us :yes:

 

You want Congress to investigate theft? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

No, that's not a monopoly, it's a good business practice. There are other coin counting companies out there, and business owners are free to contract with any of them. Whoever pays the store the most for floor space gets the contract. The store gets a piece of that 9%, too. CoinStar puts a non compete clause in their contracts, just like Coke and Pepsi. You don't see them side by side in a restaurant, do you? Same thing. Nobody is forcing you to use CoinStar, just as no one is forcing you to drink Pepsi.

 

it only says that it won't give you back SILVER Ike dollars. what about non-silver dollars? it keeps those too ...

 

For what it's worth, when I worked at the grocery store 12 years ago, and coinstar was a new, novel product, we had one in the foyer. It would jam up occasionally, and the managers would open the machine, clean the drum, empty the internal reject bin, and try to clear the blockage in the chute to the sealed bin that gets sent off to be counted. There was a reject slot in the front as well. The internal bin held things like lost buttons, plastic, paperclips, earrings, bent coins that wouldn't make it through, foreign coins of almuminum, nickel, or bronze, and thats about it. If anyone put large dollars in, it would almost always get stuck in the drum, the manager would clear it out, and return the large dollar to the customer.
That's my experience with coin stars.

 

Basically, if the Coinstar screen tells you what it takes and what it doesn't take, they are doing nothing wrong or against the law. It's like a "No Parking" sign, if you park there, don't be surprised to find a ticket under your wiper blade.

 

No it doesn't.

I've seen people depositing just the Sacs and/or Prez dollars in Coin Star and receiving the slip for every single one minus $.09 for every dollar deposited.

 

I would agree with you IF what you said were true. But the fact is that Coinstar charges 9 percent (not 0.09 cents, not 9 cents, and not 0.09%) but 9 cents of every dollar a customer puts into their machine. I would agree that the convenience and saving in time would be well worth less than one cent (which is what 0.09 cents is) to have Coinstar count "several hundred dollars" worth of coins. But I think it is a ripoff to charge someone $45 to count $500 worth of coins. But many people are more than willing to pay that exorbitant fee for the convenience.

For $47.10 you can buy a nice coin sorter and counter and roll your own coins (http://www.google.com/products/cata...=X&ei=uLuZT8W9PIGY2AWm9YWIBw&ved=0CI8BEPMCMAA#). So for the price of counting about $500 worth of coins you can buy your own coin counter and sorter and never again have to pay Coinstar to do the work for you. That just makes good sense to me. (Obviously if everybody agree with me Coinstar would be out of business.)

 

So, here's a novel idea...

Don't
Use
Coinstar

Why is that so hard?

 

Medoraman, I agree that if the knowingly keep coins in an internal reject bin then it's a problem, but that is not what they do.

I have never used a coinstar machine, but I frequently used the ones at my bank for roll searching and can confirm they also have an internal junk bin. I know because I use to fill up the machine's bags and would have to wait while an teller changed the bags. Having seen the inside of these machines many times I can also confirm that the junk big is mostly full of lint and dust and non-coin items like paperclips and washers. This internal junk bin is neccessary to catch things that will gum up the operation of the machine if they were allowed to pass through.

It's not a conspiracy, it's mechanical design. Think of the machine as a three step seive. Step one is filter out coins from non-coins (internal junk bin). Step two is filter out accepted coins from non-accepted coins (external junk bin). Step three is count accepted coins. At this point I am sure someone will point out that ike and morgan dollars get collected in the internal bin. This is due to the mechanism that pulls the coin from the hopper to the sorter does not have a slot big enough to pull these coins, that's just they way they are made. But, the first step in that sorting does not have any way to discriminate silver vs. non-silver, it's purely a size issue.

Last point, please keep in mind no machine can be designed to work properly 100% of the time. All coin counting machines will miss some coins. Again, from roll-searching $10,000+ in half dollars I can attest that the machine would miscount a small percentage of the time, on occasion I would drop in $500 in half dollars and it would only give me credit for $499.50. It's not a conspiracy it's just the realities of mechanical design, nothing has a 0% error rate.