TD Bank just announced that it is discontinuing their Penny Arcade automated coin counter machines after a lawsuit and NBC investigation shut them down a few weeks ago. You can bring in coins you have rolled yourself, but mechanical counting, the bank says, has lost its popularity, and they want to ensure accuracy for all bank customers.
How the heck did coins become such a burden?
To this day I am holding onto a Euro coin which nobody wants to exchange for me. I got it in change at a supermarket in place of a quarter, and I know it’s worth more than that. I refuse to give it up, and I’m determined to find somebody who will give me fair market value for it. Foreign currency exchanges won’t even touch it: I went to three in New York City and got the polite brush-off.
A friend of mine is not above going to the mall food court and counting out coins in place of paper money. It does involve waiting while she separates and tallies up the denominations, but they spend just the same. Also, coins bulging in your handbag add quite a bit of weight. I should know: if I didn’t dump out my quarters and pennies once a week, I’d be carrying around the weight of a toddler on my shoulder.
It used to be fun to go to the coin machine and have it spin your metal money around in a centrifuge like way. The Penny Arcade was a sort of interactive experience featuring a red-headed computer generated little girl who talked you through the process of getting paper for your coins. “Wow, you sure saved a lot of coins,” she says as she directs you to her friend the teller and reminds you to check the reject slot for any duds.
It seems whatever magical force counted the coins registered more duds than they returned to the reject slot: the NBC experiment allegedly put $300 in coins in one Penny Arcade and it counted short by some $44.00. TD’s non-bank competitor, Coinstar, was found to be accurate, but you surrender 11 cents for every dollar you put in unless you elect to receive an e-gift card in place of cash.
TD is still offering to give out coin sleeves so you can count your coins yourself, but I long for the days when coins were as valuable to a bank as paper.
Here’s what I think: TD should replace the Penny Arcades with coin counting stations, complete with sleeves, sorters and hand sanitizer (coins do make your hands smell metallic). Somebody has to give respect to coinage, and it could redeem some of the damage done by this mechanical mayhem.
Either that, or round everything up and abolish coins altogether.
Susan's Scribblings the Blog 
Coin Artists
Posted at 2:49 am by kayewer, on May 22, 2016
TD Bank just announced that it is discontinuing their Penny Arcade automated coin counter machines after a lawsuit and NBC investigation shut them down a few weeks ago. You can bring in coins you have rolled yourself, but mechanical counting, the bank says, has lost its popularity, and they want to ensure accuracy for all bank customers.
How the heck did coins become such a burden?
To this day I am holding onto a Euro coin which nobody wants to exchange for me. I got it in change at a supermarket in place of a quarter, and I know it’s worth more than that. I refuse to give it up, and I’m determined to find somebody who will give me fair market value for it. Foreign currency exchanges won’t even touch it: I went to three in New York City and got the polite brush-off.
A friend of mine is not above going to the mall food court and counting out coins in place of paper money. It does involve waiting while she separates and tallies up the denominations, but they spend just the same. Also, coins bulging in your handbag add quite a bit of weight. I should know: if I didn’t dump out my quarters and pennies once a week, I’d be carrying around the weight of a toddler on my shoulder.
It used to be fun to go to the coin machine and have it spin your metal money around in a centrifuge like way. The Penny Arcade was a sort of interactive experience featuring a red-headed computer generated little girl who talked you through the process of getting paper for your coins. “Wow, you sure saved a lot of coins,” she says as she directs you to her friend the teller and reminds you to check the reject slot for any duds.
It seems whatever magical force counted the coins registered more duds than they returned to the reject slot: the NBC experiment allegedly put $300 in coins in one Penny Arcade and it counted short by some $44.00. TD’s non-bank competitor, Coinstar, was found to be accurate, but you surrender 11 cents for every dollar you put in unless you elect to receive an e-gift card in place of cash.
TD is still offering to give out coin sleeves so you can count your coins yourself, but I long for the days when coins were as valuable to a bank as paper.
Here’s what I think: TD should replace the Penny Arcades with coin counting stations, complete with sleeves, sorters and hand sanitizer (coins do make your hands smell metallic). Somebody has to give respect to coinage, and it could redeem some of the damage done by this mechanical mayhem.
Either that, or round everything up and abolish coins altogether.
Share this:
Related
Author: kayewer