Get rid of loose change in tesco self service machines (i.e. commision free)

brick tamland

I used in coin counting thing in my local tesco and the reciept gave me 2 options. Use the full amount off purchases in Tesco or get 90% in cash at Customer Services. I brought the reciept up and got 100% value at the till. No hassle with automatic till or anything like that. It was about 6/8 weeks ago unless its changes since.

Not sure if its like that everywhere

rubadub

brick tamland wrote: »

Use the full amount off purchases in Tesco or get 90% in cash at Customer Services. I brought the reciept up and got 100% value at the till.

Are you absolutely certain you got the full value, if so where is this tesco? When you read the info on the machine in my local tesco it certainly at first appears to give 100% until you read the fine print. It has come up in several threads in consumer issues

Chiparus wrote: »

Brought the bedside jar of coins to Tesco, where they have a coin machine. It said quite clearly exchange the "full value against tesco shopping" however they took 9% ( 10 euro) and refused to exchange the full value against my shopping bill.

Is there anything I can do?

E30i wrote: »

I understood from the instructions on the machine that I had 2 options
1) Redeem the full value against your shoping at any Tesco Store
or
2) Exchange for cash at the Customer Service Desk.

Given the use of the word 'full' in option 1 (and repeated on the voucher I received) I had the expectation that I could use the €117.06 value against my shopping. However in Tesco Wexford this morning the manager insisted that this is incorrect and that whether I choose cash or to redeem against my shopping the only value on my voucher is €106.06.

The guy above went on to complain to coinstar (company who make/run the machines) about being misleading and got a refund. Its very sneaky wording, and they know fine well it is, as I said in the first post "who would take vouchers over cash"

rainbowdash

If somebody had the brains to get rid of at least 1 and 2 cent coins from circulation a lot of this age old problem would be solved.

dub50

rainbowdash wrote: »

If somebody had the brains to get rid of at least 1 and 2 cent coins from circulation a lot of this age old problem would be solved.

interesting article on getting rid of small denomination coins

http://www.economist.com/node/21554518

Buttonwood
Making no cents
The demise of a coin shows the long-term impact of inflation
May 12th 2012 | from the print edition


FAREWELL to the Canadian penny. The last one-cent coin, in circulation ever since Canada developed its own currency in 1858, was minted on May 4th. The coin had become a nuisance, weighing down consumers’ wallets and costing more to produce than it was worth.

The penny is just the latest in a series of coins to disappear after centuries of use. The British farthing was worth just a quarter of an old penny, or one-960th of a pound, but it still lasted almost 700 years before it disappeared from circulation in 1960. Remarkably enough, half-farthings were also issued in the 19th century, and even smaller coins (third- and quarter-farthings) were used abroad.


Inflation killed the farthing just as it has killed the Canadian cent. Small coins are living on borrowed time once they become useless for buying individual items. A single penny could buy the first British postage stamp, the Penny Black, in 1840 and was still sufficient to buy a small ice cream for a short-trousered Buttonwood in the late 1960s. Nowadays you would struggle to find a humble ice lolly selling for less than a pound.

By the time the farthing disappeared, Britain was entering its most rapid period of peacetime inflation. In 1971 decimalisation followed, under which the smallest coin was the halfpenny (one-200th of a pound). It lasted only 13 years before it was abandoned. Even when governments do not abolish coins, a market solution may emerge. In Italy, before euro adoption, almost all items cost so many thousands of lire that shopkeepers and restaurants stopped handing over small amounts of change, offering customers sweets instead.

Coins are not the only casualties of monetary history. The old British ten-shilling note disappeared in 1969, replaced by the new 50-pence piece. The one-pound note, which had been around for almost 200 years, was replaced by a coin in 1988. In those cases, wear and tear was to blame. The coins lasted 50 times as long.

Sometimes the whole currency gets redenominated. The French franc was worth around a fifth of the dollar just before the first world war. It attained the same exchange rate in the 1960s. In the meantime, however, two zeros had been knocked off the face value of French bank notes: 100 old francs became 1 new one. In effect, the franc had lost 99% of its value (and that against a dollar with a reduced purchasing power against gold).

But the rise in metal prices, itself a symptom of inflation, does for coins in the end. Nowadays melting down coins to exploit the potential for arbitrage is often illegal, but in the Middle Ages it was standard practice. As a result the content of the farthing, which was once made of silver, was steadily switched to cheaper copper, tin and bronze.

The Canadian government is presenting the decision to abolish the penny as a matter of public economy: the move will save C$11m ($11m) a year in production and distribution costs. There have been calls for the American penny, which costs 2.4 cents to produce, to follow suit. But that would mean greater use of the nickel (five cents), which is even less economic to produce, at 11.2 cents for each coin. Tradition, and a public suspicion of such government initiatives, have saved the penny so far.

These losses are offset by the profits each government makes by producing other notes and coins for less than their face value. This profit, known as seigniorage, is one of the great hidden sources of government revenue. Quantitative easing—the ability of central banks to create money with a click of a mouse, and to use the proceeds to buy bonds and reduce the government’s borrowing costs—is potentially an even more lucrative wheeze.

The demise of small coins also owes something, of course, to the move towards electronic money. Retailers have typically priced goods just below a whole number: $9.99, say. In part, that was a measure against fraud: employees were forced to open the till in order to provide the penny change. That is less pertinent these days, when most customers are paying by debit or credit card.

Canadian retailers will presumably want to exploit the psychological appeal of less-than-whole-number pricing, so many will opt for C$9.95 rather than the full C$10. That might make this shift different from the usual experience of consumers—that any currency reform becomes an excuse for higher prices. But history suggests shoppers cannot win in the end. If you don’t look after the pennies, then the pounds (or dollars) will disappear by themselves.

Mandzhalas

i have about (hopefully) 1000 euro in coins.where is cheapest place to change them in notes?

Atlantic Dawn

Mandzhalas wrote: »

i have about (hopefully) 1000 euro in coins.where is cheapest place to change them in notes?

Your local bank, if you ask the cashier they will give you bags for the various denominations, I'd think you could easily count them yourself. Otherwise your looking at 10-15% commission in the likes of Tesco or other retailers with counting machines.

Oracle

Sigourney wrote: »

I have never been spat at in a supermarket. But I always go to Superquinn.

... yes although in Superquinn you've got to wait while the biddy on the till finishes her 10 minute chat with her friend or relative. :rolleyes:

Amalgam

Long time 1 cent Tesco dumper here.. in most of the stores that are open late, the machines are emptied at around 10pm, so.. messing around with bags of coins close to that time will lead to trouble, as in, jams, or machine full.

Once the staff have done the evening clean out, afterwards, you're in the clear to dump and run once again.

I expect after this thread, there'll be a slow escalation, a slug like request meandering up through to the Tesco IT division, to impose a coin limit in the machine's programming.

[Tesco corporate shill]This cannot stand![/Tesco corporate shill]

dowtchaboy

I chuck all my 1c, 2 and 5c coins in a jar when going to bed.

Every few months I take the jar to the Credit Union and donate it to Special Olympics - the CU people take the coins from me without counting and count them later when things are quiet (as often happens in a CU).

Saves me messing with the coins and lets me breeze past the chuggers on the street without a qualm.

hairyairyfairy

"spent" €25 in tesco today and paid with nothing larger than a 50c piece, was DELIGHTED
then went to Aldi and paid €42 in coins and still have half a jar left of the larger denomination coins, best days shopping EVER:D
thanks OP

wmpdd3

Aldi took 42 euro in coin? Bagged?

Snake Plisken

I fix the self service tills in most supermarkets and no 1 issue is coin jams, idiots trying to feed to many coins into a machine that is only designed to sort through a handful of coins, btw if you jam them up in tesco's your not getting them back! The lads doing this look a bit sad spending 20 minutes feeding in coins and having them rejected, also checkout managers are telling staff to stop people using self service till's who are paying with bags or jars of coins.
Anyway just letting you know I don't mind as keeps me in a job :cool:

hairyairyfairy

wmpdd3 wrote: »

Aldi took 42 euro in coin? Bagged?

No loose, I had a box of coins and kept handing them to the operator (we were both very quick adding it up) and i had all the smaller coins already used up during the day so they were larger denomination, she never even batted an eyelid

KM88

Snake Plisken wrote: »

I fix the self service tills in most supermarkets and no 1 issue is coin jams, idiots trying to feed to many coins into a machine that is only designed to sort through a handful of coins

Hmmm ...,
maybe the engineers should have designed the machines to cope with the things people will commonly do. Feeding fistfuls of coins to a machine like this is perfectly foreseeable by an engineer who is not an idiot inexperienced.

On the other hand, looking to save 10% by perfectly legal means does not make any consumer an idiot. :mad:

rubadub

KM88 wrote: »

maybe the engineers should have designed the machines to cope with the things people will commonly do.

+1, they should not have such a large funnel/basket which is inviting people to throw lots of coins in. Or could have another simple feature, like opening a sprung hatch if the weight of the coins in the chute is too much.

The store managers are the biggest idiots though, not putting up a sign warning not to dump 10+ in at a time.

I did jam it, and did get my stuck coins back, and my total was intact.

Snake Plisken

KM88 wrote: »

Hmmm ...,
maybe the engineers should have designed the machines to cope with the things people will commonly do. Feeding fistfuls of coins to a machine like this is perfectly foreseeable by an engineer who is not an idiot inexperienced.

On the other hand, looking to save 10% by perfectly legal means does not make any consumer an idiot. :mad:

Nah it's the customers who jam up the machines with jars and bags of coins and when it freezes with all of their cash in the machine and expect it back they will be in for a shock as your not getting it back, I take the change out clear the blockage usually a bent coin and put them back into the machine to test it, did one on Friday and 11 euros worth of coins went back in all for Tesco's bottom line :rolleyes:
It shouldn't be allowed! not that staff care it's the customers behind waiting to use the machines I feel sorry for! Anyway go use a normal till!

Snake Plisken

rubadub wrote: »

+1, they should not have such a large funnel/basket which is inviting people to throw lots of coins in. Or could have another simple feature, like opening a sprung hatch if the weight of the coins in the chute is too much.

The store managers are the biggest idiots though, not putting up a sign warning not to dump 10+ in at a time.

I did jam it, and did get my stuck coins back, and my total was intact.

It's true staff and management are trained to stop this day 1 but most staff don't care or new staff come in and aren't trained to stop this practice, also gets my goat is management allowing full trollies to be put through fastlanes that are only designed to take a basket or the small trollies at most.

Actually with regards the funnel it will close once it's reached it's limit on the max amount of coins it can handle at any one time! Next time your doing it the coins will just fall straight through to the cup underneath, but most customer's won't notice that and keep pooring them through until till the machine decides it can continue taking on more coins.

rubadub

Snake Plisken wrote: »

idiots trying to feed to many coins into a machine that is only designed to sort through a handful of coins

I still don't know why you call them the idiots, if they are idiots what do you make of the management & designers?

How is anybody supposed to know what it was designed for, when there is no instruction on the machine. I have seen small basic counting machines at trade shows which gobbled up coins really fast, I would have expected even faster & far more robust performance from a machine intended for the general public.

Snake Plisken wrote: »

It's true staff and management are trained to stop this day 1 but most staff don't care or new staff come in and aren't trained to stop this practice

They can put a sign up, its stupid relying on staff just noticing people. They have signs up reminding you to use your clubcard in my tesco now.

How many do you reckon is the max to put in at once?, or the most efficient amount timewise (which may not be the max)

Libera

Interesting, according to the Central Bank's website:

"What is the maximum number of euro coins that a shop is obliged to accept in any single transaction?

The following is an extract from the Economic and Monetary Union Act, 1998:

“10(1) No person, other than the Central Bank of Ireland and such persons as may be designated by the Minister by order, shall be obliged to accept more than 50 coins denominated in euro or in cent in any single transaction.”

What bugs me, is quite often you directed away from a till to go and use the self-service, often with a lengthy queue! The retailers can't have it every way in their favour!

rubadub

Yeah, I posted that 50 coin limit thing before. Also you can post coins to the central bank, or bring them in, up to €635. I emailed them to see if you can just bring in a bucket of mixed coins and dump them in.

There is a form to fill out if posting them in, you are meant to count up each coin, then it is 'verified'. Its a bit stupid as I could just put down 100000 of each coin, and let them verify what was actually correct.