Watch those coin counters!!!

[NYCDiane]

I always toss my change in a jar and then cash it in for whatever reason. I always, always count it before cashing it but the coin counting machine at a particular bank always seems to be a little "off".

Recently, I emptied my penny can. I knew I had close to $7 because I had counted it a week or two before emptying it and had $6.53. Since counting it, I had tossed a bunch more pennies in it.

Well, I get to the bank, put the money in the machine and the ticket comes out saying I have $5.99. Now, I KNOW that's incorrect so I inform the teller. She says they check the machine three times a day to make sure it's right so I must have only had $5.99. Okay, I'm not going to argue with her over $1 but next time I know better.

Yesterday, I emptied my change can. I counted it THREE times to make sure I was correct and even separated quarters, dimes, nickels. I knew exactly how much I had in each denomination. I had a total of $78 even.

I go to the bank and put the money in and do three separate transactions. It shorted me $2 on the quarters; 10 cents on the dimes, and credited me 15 cents extra on the nickels! So now, I'm $1.95 short. No, I'm not letting it slide; I want my $1.95.

I send my daughter to the teller and she gets a supervisor. He comes over, opens the machine and pulls out the inside thing where all the coins go. He sees that there are a bunch of quarters jammed up in the shoot as well as some other coins. There were also a ton of coins all over the floor inside the machine! He clears everything out, cleans the machine, resets it, and tosses the coins that were jammed into the machine. I end up with a credit of $3.15. I tell him I'm only short by $1.95. He tells me no, I get the whole $3.15 because they can't keep it. Fine, so now I'm ahead by $1.20.

The moral of this story is: to count your coins before bringing them to any coin counting machine!!! What I do is, when I see I'm getting a lot of coins, I'll count them out, write the amount on a piece of paper and put those coins in a separate ziplock bag and put it back in my coin can. I just cringe when I see people going to the machine with a huge jar of coins knowing they're going to probably come back $5 or $10 short of what they actually have. This has happened to me on more than the above 2 occassions and I've let it slide. No more. I save my change and I don't want my money sitting on the floor of a machine or being credited to someone else!

 

[snarlingcoyote]

The way coin counters work is that the money goes onto a rotating disc. The disc spins the money by weight into the appropriate chute. Sometimes money gets caught in odd places or spun off the chute improperly. $1.95 on $78 dollars though - that's high. I'd expect a quarter or two to go missing on that amount. They need to get their machine looked at.

Still, if you don't want to lose a few coins every now and again, hand count your money.

<======worked as a cashier at a casino when I was in grad school.

 

[ssawka]

OP, please don't take this the wrong way, but why would you use a coin counter if you are counting the coins anyway? Just get yourself some coin wrappers and do it the "old fashion" way.

 

[kymom99]

OP, please don't take this the wrong way, but why would you use a coin counter if you are counting the coins anyway? Just get yourself some coin wrappers and do it the "old fashion" way.

That's what I was going to say!

 

[ceecee]

OP, please don't take this the wrong way, but why would you use a coin counter if you are counting the coins anyway? Just get yourself some coin wrappers and do it the "old fashion" way.

That's exactly what I was thinking, all the work was done seperating and counting. Just wrap .em up!"

 

[NYCDiane]

OP, please don't take this the wrong way, but why would you use a coin counter if you are counting the coins anyway? Just get yourself some coin wrappers and do it the "old fashion" way.

I would love to do it the "old fashioned" way, but my bank won't take coins as deposits (the tell you to use the coin counter!). My former bank would actually CHARGE you for bringing in rolled currency (unless you were a business)

 

[NYCDiane]

The way coin counters work is that the money goes onto a rotating disc. The disc spins the money by weight into the appropriate chute. Sometimes money gets caught in odd places or spun off the chute improperly. $1.95 on $78 dollars though - that's high. I'd expect a quarter or two to go missing on that amount. They need to get their machine looked at.

Still, if you don't want to lose a few coins every now and again, hand count your money.

<======worked as a cashier at a casino when I was in grad school.

I know how the machine works --- I actually had a small one many, many years ago and it was pretty cool.

$1.95 on $78 is high. $1 on $7 in pennies is just crazy. This happens ALL the time, though! It's always short by some amount. You tell the teller and they act like YOU'RE the one who's wrong.

One time, I told the teller the machine shorted me by $2.47. She pretty much rolled her eyes and I told her to check because I'm not letting the machine cheat me out of money that I know I put in there. She went and ---- voila! ---- there was exactly $2.47 stuck in the chute.

 

[tadamom]

Just wondering does it help if you dump in little bits at a time instead of one big empty of the jar?

 

[ilovemk76]

I know how the machine works --- I actually had a small one many, many years ago and it was pretty cool.

$1.95 on $78 is high. $1 on $7 in pennies is just crazy. This happens ALL the time, though! It's always short by some amount. You tell the teller and they act like YOU'RE the one who's wrong.

One time, I told the teller the machine shorted me by $2.47. She pretty much rolled her eyes and I told her to check because I'm not letting the machine cheat me out of money that I know I put in there. She went and ---- voila! ---- there was exactly $2.47 stuck in the chute.

Why don't you just spend the money and save yourself the time and aggravation of using the coin machines?

 

[Mousemom234]

OP, please don't take this the wrong way, but why would you use a coin counter if you are counting the coins anyway? Just get yourself some coin wrappers and do it the "old fashion" way.

Last time I took wrapped coins (about $80 worth) to my bank, they just told me to unwrap them and use the coin counter.
DH had the same thing happen at his bank, but at least they unwrapped and counted his.

Seems banks don't trust you to wrap your own coins anymore. But I still count what we have, just to make sure the counter gives us back what we brought in.

 

[Belle & Ariel]

We have actually counted and rolled the coins and still been shorted because they put them through the coin counter.
It seems they are typically short 3-5 coins per roll.

 

[SamSam]

OP, please don't take this the wrong way, but why would you use a coin counter if you are counting the coins anyway? Just get yourself some coin wrappers and do it the "old fashion" way.

Our bank doesn't allow 'rolled' coins. If you bring in rolls of coins, they either have you empty them into the coin counter yourelf or do it themselves.

I've never actually counted my coins before taking them in, you can bet that I will from now on. I always assumed that the coin counters were accurate.

 

[SKTiger]

Agreed! I'm leery of the coin counters so I pull out all my quarters, take them to Kroger around 10:00 at night when the store is empty and buy a Disney giftcard with the quarters. Less chance of a counting error that way!

 

[ssawka]

I would love to do it the "old fashionED" way, but my bank won't take coins as deposits (the tell you to use the coin counter!). My former bank would actually CHARGE you for bringing in rolled currency (unless you were a business)

Last time I took wrapped coins (about $80 worth) to my bank, they just told me to unwrap them and use the coin counter.
DH had the same thing happen at his bank, but at least they unwrapped and counted his.

Seems banks don't trust you to wrap your own coins anymore. But I still count what we have, just to make sure the counter gives us back what we brought in.

Our bank doesn't allow 'rolled' coins. If you bring in rolls of coins, they either have you empty them into the coin counter yourelf or do it themselves.

I guess this is one of the reasons that I gave up on banks a long time ago. None of the credit unions I've used over the years have ever given me a problem with depositing coins.

 

[Swimalie]

I guess this is one of the reasons that I gave up on banks a long time ago. None of the credit unions I've used over the years have ever given me a problem with depositing coins.

My son has a credit union account and they require coins to go through a counter. They won't accept them as a deposit without their counter's slip.

Now that I know this might happen, I will be counting his coins before I go in. I don't want an 8-year old being shorted.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

As OP stated he had less than $10 in coin therefore OP may not have had enough coins to put into a roll. That is why OP did not roll the coins.

 

[lauradis]

Most of the self check out stations in stores take change, I just started using the one at giant eagle ( grocery store in ne Ohio ) to buy Disney gift cards. Feed the machine over $21 in change. Dd10 loved doing it and the count was spot on.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Most of the self check out stations in stores take change, I just started using the one at giant eagle ( grocery store in ne Ohio ) to buy Disney gift cards. Feed the machine over $21 in change. Dd10 loved doing it and the count was spot on.

I wouldn't have thought of doing this, but the mechanism in those machines is different from a bank coin counter. . .I bet it is always spot on!

I have a bag of coins that I just don't ever think about. . .I think I will have to visit the self-checkout at Walmart one day and buy some gift cards for Christmas!

 

[NYCDiane]

As OP stated he had less than $10 in coin therefore OP may not have had enough coins to put into a roll. That is why OP did not roll the coins.

I actually said I had $7 in pennies which would have been 14 rolls and then $78 in Quarters, Dimes, and Nickels.

I said in a subsequent post that my bank won't take rolled currency unless you're a business and some banks actually CHARGE YOU to take coins/rolled currency.

 

[NYCDiane]

Just wondering does it help if you dump in little bits at a time instead of one big empty of the jar?

That's what I did. I separated the quarters, dimes, and nickels and did three separate transactions.

The machine is absolutely off. EVERY time I go to one of their branches this happens (there are 3 branches close to me). You tell the tellers and they claim the machine is correct. I've proven them wrong on more than one occassion.

I was thinking about writing a complaint letter but then they may just take the machines out altogether! I know they've stopped letting non-account holders use them.