Posted on 11/02/2011 5:43:43 PM PDT by Morgana
PORTLAND, Ore. -- A woman in Portland said her local grocery store refused to allow her to pay for her shopping cart items with $32 in loose change.
The shopper, who was too embarrassed to use her name, said the clerk at the Save-a-Lot store would only accept $5 of the change, claiming it was store policy, KATU reported.
The woman told KATU that she tried to use her loose change at another area grocery to buy her family food -- a Fred Meyer store -- but the manager there directed her to a coin exchange machine instead, where the fees run about 10 percent.
She said the Fred Meyer manager later agreed to cover the exchange machine fee after she started sobbing.
Representatives from each of the stores later apologized for the incidents, and advised that store employees and managers would be retrained on checkout policies -- specifically that all payments, cash or coin, were accepted.
(Excerpt) Read more at wlky.com ...
The point I make is that as a unit of currency the coins can not purchase any thing at a retail store individually.
Your point simply strengthens my point that nickels, dimes and pennies should be removed from circulation because it now cost more to produce them than there face value.
No sales tax...I thought that was just a myth. My admiration for Oregon has just gone up a notch. Thank you both for the information.
Sounds like an idiocy rub-off from Humbolt state.
Most states have changed to EBT cards. It is electronic bank debit card tied to a massive data base. It is supposed to keep the purchases legit and cut down on folk selling food stamps for cash. Except the state picks up the bank fees. It is also supposed to get the “stigma” of being on food stamps to a minimum.
Not saying I agree...just ‘splainin’ how it is.
If Everyone paid in coins, over an extended period, a good manager would change the standard.
But there are so few of them left in the world it is scary.
Want some of my pennies?
In my experience, (from a long time ago in the 70’s), if you went through the trouble of rolling the coins, all the cashier would do would be to dump the rolls and count/verify the coins anyhoo. Just to make sure it wasn’t subway tokens or whatever.
Total waste of time rolling the coins when a machine can count out 32 bucks worth in about 14 seconds...
I wouldn’t have taken the coins either.
(1) You’re shutting down the line for at least 1/2 hour while the cashier counts the coins. That means lost sales to the store as there will be at least some people that will walk out rather than wait 1/2 hour or wait in the other (now longer) lines.
(2) The cashier is still being paid. Even if it’s only $10 and hour, that’s $5 gone. Groceries run on thin margins. $5 is probably more than they would have made on the entire $32 sale.
(3) The coins have to be counted and rolled at the end of the day before they can be deposited. That’s more money gone, as the grocery has to pay an employee to roll them.
In other words, the grocery was going to LOSE MONEY on the $32 sale.
Businesses are not in business to lose money. They are in the business to make money.
There are some customers busnesses are better off without—customers that they lose money on.
My parents ran a small mom & pop business. I can remember several times when customers got to be so high-maintenance that we were losing money on them, my dad said to them “We’re not going to be able to meet your expectations, it would be better if you took your business someplace else.”
They were in business 30 years, but if they had tried please everyone—no matter what the demand—they wouldn’t have been.
So?
Banks are private busniesses, they are not part of the government. Why should they be forced to provide services (which cost them money) to a non-customer?
The dirty secret of smoking bans is publicly bars/restaurants are against them, but behind the scenes bars/restaurants favor them.
Bar/restaurant business goes UP after smoking bans. The fact is, a large percentage of non-smokers simply will not go to an establishment that allows smoking under any circumstances.
On the other hand, a large number of smokers will go to an establishment that bans smoking—as long as it’s the government that banned the smoking. If the establishment takes it upon themselves to ban smoking, smokers will not frequent it.
So publicly bars make a big fuss about government laws against smoking, but behind the scenes the don’t do anything to stop it.
Anybody who tells you that is a liar.
I have lots of pre-’82 pennies.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
I wasn’t advocating that banks provide services for non customers, I was replying to another poster who said just take hand rolled coin to the bank. I worked for a bank for several years, I realize they are private businesses.
And you'll see why we're doomed.
4th generation parasites.
Do you believe everyone should use either cash or plastic, no checks? Why?
Maybe the register drawers don’t have enough room for all that change?
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