Apparently there’s a coin shortage because people are sheltering at home and not shopping.
I tried quoting and screwed it up. I have no idea how to fix it. There’s no tags to delete.
Kroger announced Monday that its cashiers will stop returning coins as change to customers who pay with cash. Instead, cusomters will have two options to collect their change:
they can add the change to a loyalty card to apply on their next visit, or
round up and donate to the Zero Hunger|Zero Waste Foundation to help area food banks.
Kroger said that customers should see information posted in their store within the next few days.
It can’t make the shortage worse since they don’t have any coins to begin with. Kroger (and all the other stores) can’t get change right now. My little store goes through about 50ish rolls of pennies in a week and maybe 30 or 40 rolls for quarters (plus dimes and nickels). If I got to the bank and ask for a box of pennies (50 rolls), they’ll give me 4 or 5 because that’s all they have. That’s less than one business day for me. If, for example, my store has zero pennies, how am I making things worse by telling customers we’re not giving out pennies any more. It’s the customers that have to start using pennies so that I have pennies to give to other customers or customers bringing their change to the banks or coinstar machines so that I can buy them from the bank and have them on hand to make change.
I don’t know how much of the shortage is due to mint workers not working and how much is due to people not circulating their coins, but one thing people can do is not hoard coins. Yes, I know, people aren’t ‘hoarding’ them in the typical sense, but everyone is so terrified of touching anything the toss it in a bowl or bucket or purse or cup holder and don’t use it again or they’ve totally switched over to credit cards.
People need to start taking their change and using it at stores* or bring it to the banks or coinstar machines and get it back into circulation.
*Again, I know people don’t want to touch money, but if it’s been sitting in the same place for the last 3 months, by all accounts, it’s perfectly safe to touch. Toss some in your purse or pocket each day and start spending/depositing/changing it.
It’s not catch-22. If people start getting rid of all their change, the stores will have be able to use it.
I thought some coinstar locations don’t charge a fee if you redeem it for a gift card for that store. For example, dump $100 in change into the coinstar machine at Kroger and get a $100 Kroger gift card. Presumably Kroger then pays the fee you would have been charged.
My Credit Union has a coinstar-type machine that is free for account holders. The only problem is that they shut down the lobby in March except by appointment only for necessary face-to-face interactions(maybe loans?). The coin machine isn’t considered necessary. When the lobby opened back up in May for ‘limited transactions’ the coin machine was still not available. Since then the lobby has shut down again.
I have an overflowing container of coins that I can’t get rid of - it was full when the shut-downs started. That would be around $80-$100 back in circulation. I imagine many people are in the same situation.
Is there something special about coins that they are afraid of?
Around here, where I use it, there’s a gazillion fee-free gift card/credit options—not just that store’s credit—including Amazon.com credit, which is as good as cash for us. I thought they all came with numerous options to avoid the fee.
They’re not keeping your money. Any extra is put onto your loyalty card and the next time you shop there that money gets used first.
From a legal standpoint, if they clearly explained that they’re doing this and that you can, of course, use a different form of payment, they might be okay but I don’t know.
Remember, stores aren’t required to accept cash. You can’t compel them to take your paper/coin currency (and then get mad when they physically don’t have the change to give you back) . That might help strengthen their (legal) ability to do that.
As for rounding down. I can’t see them doing that. They’re not going to give every customer (on average) 50¢. A store the size of Kroeger is doing, I’m going to say 2000-3000 customers a day. If 1000 of them use cash that could be a nearly $500/day loss. I think they’d go cashless, at least temporarily, before they’d do that.
This assumes you are naive enough to have a privacy-invading loyalty card, though.
Sure, they don’t have to take cash, but now I wonder what the law says about discrimination. That is, if they accept cash from some customers (privacy-invading loyalty card users), do they have to accept cash from all customers?
They spend way more than that on credit card fees. If they can’t provide change, then this is just part of the cost of doing business.
I thought about that too. I suppose the other option is to put the change on a gift card which you could use the next time you’re at the store. I understand people want and need their money, but they would be missing, on average 50¢ from one trip to the next.
I’m more than aware of credit card fees. My store has had all time record high credit card fees (and we’ve been here 40 years) the last few months.
6 months ago, the bill I got from the processor would be about $2500, these months it’s nearly $4000. That works out to an extra $50/day. Lets call that a wash over just giving rounding everything down.
In any case, you call it a cost of doing business or an unexpected expense, but whatever you call it, ultimately the customer is going to foot the bill. The business, especially small businesses are going to have to raise their prices to cover that added expense.
There’s nothing we can do going backwards, but if this becomes at all normal for any length of time, it’s going to drive up prices. There’s no two ways around that.
I’ve seen that debate here and there. Some people are calling it discrimination based on income. That is, by not accepting cash, it suggests you trying to ‘keep the riff raff out’. OTOH, a few places around here that did that, have been high end jewelry stores that made the point that, in a nicer way, didn’t have a whole lot of riff raff to begin with.
What I did notice in that article was the quote “I remember wondering aloud, how could a business refuse to accept cash, which is legal tender?”
That, IMO, is a the big misunderstanding. As has been stated a million times just on this board, it’s legal tender for debts. You don’t owe Kroger money, you have no debt with them.
Then don’t give them cash. And they may not be giving you cash back, yes, but the 50¢ they’re keeping is automatically applied to your next purchase.
Honestly, I think this is probably the best solution to the current problem that doesn’t involve them rounding down and giving away money or rounding up and [actually] taking your money.
Hopefully people will start using change or the mint will get back to work and the problem won’t last much longer.
I usually suggest that you don’t owe them money for the food you’re going to take since it’s still their food. However, if you steal it, get caught, arrested, charged, tried and found guilty, there’s no reason why you can’t pay the restitution in cash.