US Coin Shortage (1 Viewer)

[HebrewChuckNorris]

I was in Texas last year, and blew the mind of the cashier at Walgreens when I tapped my card to pay (contactless). It took the receipt printing for her to realize what happened, and ask me what bank i use. I've noticed over the years, for whatever reason, the US is always a few years behind Canada in widespread adoption of new payment technologies.

Another example, up north here, a restaurant server would never ever take your credit card and run it away from the table, pretty much every restaurant has the wireless pinpads, or if you, you will go with the server and type your pin. I even remember as a teenager, having had a debit card for a few years, still seeing American ads on tv for a "check card" making it sound like some next level technology.

I can only guess that it's an issue of scale, but I really have no idea, you would think the US would get all of that stuff first.

 

[gmunny]

off topic, but when i was a grade schooler i used to tell my younger brother... hey you give me those 5 crappy quarters and i'll give you this crispy new dollar bill. he fell for it for awhile till my mom found out...

 

[Marius L]

Over here in Norway people almost never use cash. Everybody use debit cards. Except people that are like 70+.

 

[buzzmonkey]

I used to work in the electronic payment industry. One of the big roadblocks was the diversity of the banking industry. In order to approve more secure and convenient payment solutions you needed to get thousands of banks, credit unions and merchant groups to agree on what technology to adopt, who would foot the bill and who would be responsible for damages in the event of fraud. Because most countries outside the US have fewer private banks or sometimes just centralized government banks they can pretty much put new tech and rules in place quickly.

 

[Schmendr1ck]

Bank time!
View attachment 533104

Take those puppies to Wawa if you've got them nearby. You can get free coffee or hoagies if you bring in a certain amount of rolled coins!

 

[Coyote]

In the Euro-zone, we have coins up to 2E. Paper bills begin at 5E.
It's hard to get the coins if you need them (1E and 2E) in quantity (basically for hosting poker and being able to give change as banker)
ATMs will not even dispense 5E or 10E bills (they start with 20E bills if you ask for something ending in ...80E).
Best thing is to buy your monthly subway and bus pass-card with cash, to get coins as change.

For psycho-mentally elderly people like myself, it's hard to believe that a coin (2E) is worth 680 defunct drachmas.
Back in the day you bought a lot more with 680 drachmas than today with 2 Euros.
Still, economic analysts (illiterate bribed imposters) claim there has been no inflation
However, a common currency is not a bus, but rather an airplane. You cannot open the door to get off, or everybody will die.

Having a common currency between historically, culturally, and geopolitically/strategically disparate nations in Europe, unwilling to make sacrifices (either in wealth, or, let alone, in blood) for each other, has been a colossal historical mistake.

 

[rimmerryan]

That leaves 5c, 25c, $1, $5, $20, $100, $500, and $1000 for currency. Ditto for chips,, but add 5000, 25,000, and 100,000.

Actually leaves less than that IIRC... There are no more new $500 and $1000 bills being produced. Not since the 40s? Cut them out to reduce on crime, money laundering, drug trade, etc. etc.

 

[One Eyed Dollar]

I was in Texas last year, and blew the mind of the cashier at Walgreens when I tapped my card to pay (contactless). It took the receipt printing for her to realize what happened, and ask me what bank i use. I've noticed over the years, for whatever reason, the US is always a few years behind Canada in widespread adoption of new payment technologies.

Another example, up north here, a restaurant server would never ever take your credit card and run it away from the table, pretty much every restaurant has the wireless pinpads, or if you, you will go with the server and type your pin. I even remember as a teenager, having had a debit card for a few years, still seeing American ads on tv for a "check card" making it sound like some next level technology.

I can only guess that it's an issue of scale, but I really have no idea, you would think the US would get all of that stuff first.

This reminds me of our trip to Scotland last year. Everybody had the tap to pay cards, but my crappy US credit card was not, so they had to bring the little credit card machine over to the table and insert my card, which seemed to annoy the servers. But when I stopped at the gas (sorry, petrol) stations they had apparently not heard of pay-at-the-pump yet and I had to run inside to pay every time.

 

[DZPoker]

Take those puppies to Wawa if you've got them nearby. You can get free coffee or hoagies if you bring in a certain amount of rolled coins!

This!

https://www.phillyvoice.com/wawa-free-hoagies-contest-shortis-for-a-year-sweepstakes-coin-shortage/

 

[SpaceMonkey420]

Over here in Norway people almost never use cash. Everybody use debit cards. Except people that are like 70+.

Norway shits excellence in just about every aspect.

 

[WedgeRock]

And rolling is kind of fun

Just doing my part... Took my coins to Coinstar at the grocery store. They charge you a percentage of you want cash back, but they'll give you an evoucher with no mark-up.

I got $179.15 to spend at Amazon... Might get myself a new rod and reel, eh, @mike32?

EDIT: FWIW, the Coinstar kicked out all the Canadian coins I had, plus a People Mover token, a few pennies that were trashed and one dime... I tried the dime a few times and it kept getting rejected. Then I noticed that it sounded different, so I looked at it closer...a 1957 dime with a melt value of $1.95, according to this site.

 

[mike32]

Just doing my part... Took my coins to Coinstar at the grocery store. They charge you a percentage of you want cash back, but they'll give you an evoucher with no mark-up.

I got $179.15 to spend at Amazon... Might get myself a new rod and reel, eh, @mike32?

View attachment 534896

And still have $20 plus leftover!

 

[Colquhoun]

Near me, the Stop & Shop supermarket has the same Coinstar that charges a percentage if you want cash. However, if you choose a Stop and Shop voucher, then go buy a pack of gum, they give you the remaining balance in cash. Go figure.

 

[Josh Kifer]

Store manager- "Our new Juicy Fruit promo is skyrocketing!"

 

[moose]

I was in Texas last year, and blew the mind of the cashier at Walgreens when I tapped my card to pay (contactless). It took the receipt printing for her to realize what happened, and ask me what bank i use. I've noticed over the years, for whatever reason, the US is always a few years behind Canada in widespread adoption of new payment technologies.

Another example, up north here, a restaurant server would never ever take your credit card and run it away from the table, pretty much every restaurant has the wireless pinpads, or if you, you will go with the server and type your pin. I even remember as a teenager, having had a debit card for a few years, still seeing American ads on tv for a "check card" making it sound like some next level technology.

I can only guess that it's an issue of scale, but I really have no idea, you would think the US would get all of that stuff first.

I had the same experience 3 years ago when I tapped the terminal at a store in Pa. The cashier looked at me like I had just performed magic.

I used to work in the electronic payment industry. One of the big roadblocks was the diversity of the banking industry. In order to approve more secure and convenient payment solutions you needed to get thousands of banks, credit unions and merchant groups to agree on what technology to adopt, who would foot the bill and who would be responsible for damages in the event of fraud. Because most countries outside the US have fewer private banks or sometimes just centralized government banks they can pretty much put new tech and rules in place quickly.

This reminds me of our trip to Scotland last year. Everybody had the tap to pay cards, but my crappy US credit card was not, so they had to bring the little credit card machine over to the table and insert my card, which seemed to annoy the servers. But when I stopped at the gas (sorry, petrol) stations they had apparently not heard of pay-at-the-pump yet and I had to run inside to pay every time.

My local area is known to be open to being early adopters of technology so new stuff is often rolled out in our area first. Here is an article from 2008!!! announcing that we were testing the new chip cards. Chip cards still aren't universally available in the US, never mind contactless...the crap Canadians have to go through at gas pumps in backward USA...I always laugh when I am at Walmart USA and they make me sign with those shitty digital screens. I usually just mark it with X.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/kitchener-waterloo-residents-trying-out-computer-chip-payment-cards-1.763364

 

[Machine]

Last time I took coins to the bank, they wanted to charge me for accepting them. Directed me to automatic coin machine which wanted 10%. Bank is for profit, 5th 3rd wanted 8 bucks to cash a check written on their own paper. Now they want coins, maybe its the pandemic, and spending habits, but 0 cares here.

 

[cpiaaq]

Last time I took coins to the bank, they wanted to charge me for accepting them. Directed me to automatic coin machine which wanted 10%. Bank is for profit, 5th 3rd wanted 8 bucks to cash a check written on their own paper. Now they want coins, maybe its the pandemic, and spending habits, but 0 cares here.

The coin machine at my local grocery store (Coinstar @ Vons) takes 9 or 10 percent but also has an option to get an Amazon credit with no fee. When my bank had one of these machines there was no fee for customers. They removed the machines because “no one used them”.

 

[BGinGA]

Last time I took coins to the bank, they wanted to charge me for accepting them. Directed me to automatic coin machine which wanted 10%. Bank is for profit, 5th 3rd wanted 8 bucks to cash a check written on their own paper. Now they want coins, maybe its the pandemic, and spending habits, but 0 cares here.

Just make a deposit. And scream all the way to corporate if they want to charge you for making a deposit with legal tender.

 

[RichMahogany]

My credit union has a coinstar machine that is free for all members