# Why can’t they invent a vending machine that works? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 28, 2016, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315 "2016-11-28T19:50:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/21 "2016-11-29T01:35:16Z")
I know that I’ve never had a bill rejected in any of the machines in any of the teachers’ lounges I’ve worked in, and I can guarantee you that those machines are never cleaned or maintained beyond just refilling the bottles and emptying the cash. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/22 "2016-11-29T02:07:46Z")
I used to service the machine in our clubhouse and I was surprised to see how little of the bill is actually scanned. The optics are two clear windows about 1/4" wide at roughly the 1/3 points on the bill. That’s it. The mechanism is called a bill validator and you could buy a kit to replace the lenses and the rollers. Our validator (c 2000) could be set to accept everything from “all bills, any direction” to “one dollar bills, face up, facing left”. We only accepted singles since it dispenses coins only and would otherwise run out of coins. I worked with a guy who had at one time worked for a vending machine company. He said all programming was by teams, since it was too easy for a rogue programmer to insert a few lines of code that read an extra dot on the edge of a bill, for example, and perform the following actions: 1. Accept bill as valid. 2. Eject bill. 3. Dispense product. 4. Do not increment the counters. Dennis ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/23 "2016-11-29T06:51:50Z")
I’m sort of with the OP and I’ll tell you why: We shop a lot at the local Pick-n-Save and Walmart Market using their self service aisles. I can use any bill that is faded, ripped, wrinkled, torn, slightly folded, etc. and their machines suck it right in and take it! We’re at either one at least once or twice per week and have never had a bill declined. Yet a fresh, crisp, straight bill will get rejected from the soda machine in the entry vestibule of those businesses. I’m thinking that the vending machines use a cheaper/simplex scanner than the self serve check out aisles. I think that’s the answer. - Suck it right in and take it! \*Heh. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/24 "2016-11-29T07:47:54Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > We’ve all had it happen to us—we insert a bill into a snack vending machine and it spits it back out. We carefully smooth it out to remove all small folds and make the bill as flat as possible. We try again. The machine spits it right back out again. We persist, and usually are eventually successful in getting the machine to accept the bill on about the twentieth try. Why is this? I am 55 years old, and it has been like this ever since I was tall enough to reach the bill feed slot. . . . > [@aceplace57](#): > > You’re lucky if the bill is rejected. > > Getting a bill taken is worse. My friends and I used to tip the machine and shake to try and get it to give us the chips or candy. It works about half the time. > > Now I just slink away in frustration. The whole thing is a sinister long-term experiment to see how many years it takes the average American to learn that machines ostensibly designed to dispense fat, salt and suger in fact never do, and that putting money into them is futile. In Washoe’s case, 55 years and counting. Aceplace57 seems to have accepted on one level that no snacks will be forthcoming, but perhaps not on every level; he is still putting money in. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/25 "2016-11-29T07:51:32Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > In Europe, more and more machines take credit cards. I see them mainly in car parks, but I bought a coffee in a bus depot recently from a machine that only took contactless cards as payment. I suspect that this will be the norm as machines get replaced. Now that I think of it, it’s been years since I’ve seen one here that \*doesn’t \*take credit cards. I think it’s because there are maybe three companies that own all of the vending machines in the country, and they all decided to move to credit a while back. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/26 "2016-11-29T11:34:17Z")
The decade of the 2000s was the nadir of vending machine tech in general. The bill acceptors haven’t changed, but in the 2000s, vendors had started to bolt their machines to the wall so you couldn’t shake out stubborn snacks that wouldn’t fall when you bought them. These days, they are still bolted, but a lot of them have sensors that will spin a little more if it senses that nothing has fallen. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/27 "2016-11-29T12:03:49Z")
I’ve noticed that the Wal-Mart self-checkout machines will reject any bill that has a [Where’s George](http://www.wheresgeorge.com/) stamp, so I don’t even try anymore. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/28 "2016-11-29T14:16:42Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Actually, the more I thought about it,m the dollar coin would nor really be any solution at all. A log of laundromats currently have charges of 1.75 or 2.50 per load. Aside from still requiring quarters (assuming prices do not get rounded to the next higher dollar), two typical loads of wash and dry would still be ten bucks or more, and require enough dollar coins that there would have to be a bill changer on the premises anyway, to accept $10 or $20 bills. > … Aeons ago I owned a Laundromat. This was before automated credit card acceptors so everything was paid by paper currency or coins. As a rule of thumb, all your income comes in through the bill changers. The coinage in the changers just cycles between the laundry machines and the changers. The daily drill is to empty the laundry machines’ coin boxes into a bag, refill the output hoppers of the changers from the bag, then take all the paper money out of the changers and bring it to the bank. Or since it was mostly $1s and I was young, the titty bars. 🙂 We could go a couple weeks before we ended up either short or long enough on coins to need to do something about it. So yeah, in today’s world with today’s prices we’d have changers taking paper $20s and dispensing $1 coins. > [@jtur88](#): > > … > When I was growing up in the 40s, the half-dollar coin was in common circulation, with the purchasing power today of about $7 – enough for two gallons of gas, two packs of cigarettes, two chocolate malts, or two Sunday papers. Walking around with a few coins jingling in your pocket, you were considered flush ISTM that a lot of the reason the US still has such stupid tiny denominations for bills and especially coins is that credit cards have effectively replaced change. As long as I have one little hunk-o-plastic not-jingling in my pocket I’m flush. Nowadays I typically go a couple weeks without touching cash or coins. If the credit card companies or the law mandated a minimum, say, $50 purchase to use any form of payment other than cash/coin, we’d have an immediate hue and cry from the public for more useful = larger denominations of both. Hmm. Perhaps this is the Evil Overlord’s® plan to eliminate cash: just let inflation slowly erode the value of existing denominations to negligible so it takes wheelbarrows full to buy anything. Meanwhile the Mint will claim that “tradition” (and wailing from currency CTers) requires the same old denominations as always. Everyone will switch to electronic for simple reasons of convenience; Americans love to wail about changes in their money, but mostly they’re all about laziness. A very sneaky plan. And one quite likely to work, albeit slowly. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/29 "2016-11-29T15:06:02Z")
I know for a fact that the person in my house who regularly has the largest amount of cash on him - by an order of magnitude - is my 11-year-old son. After all, allowances and grandparent gifts are still a cash-only economy. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/30 "2016-11-29T15:22:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I know that I’ve never had a bill rejected in any of the machines in any of the teachers’ lounges I’ve worked in, and I can guarantee you that those machines are never cleaned or maintained beyond just refilling the bottles and emptying the cash. I wonder how you managed to avoid it. In my experience, they are fine with reasonably new, unwrinkled bills, but whatever worn, corner-folded-over bill comes out of my wallet usually has to be smoothed out a couple of times before it’s taken, or the process repeated with one of its equally worn brethren. What do you do, iron your money? ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/31 "2016-11-29T15:28:36Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I know for a fact that the person in my house who regularly has the largest amount of cash on him - by an order of magnitude - is my 11-year-old son. After all, allowances and grandparent gifts are still a cash-only economy. When my niece’s daughter reached 11 last year, I asked for advice about a present. She said for me to transfer some money into the child’s newly opened bank account so she would be able to use her brand new debit card. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/32 "2016-11-29T15:59:53Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > We’ve all had it happen to us—we insert a bill into a snack vending machine and it spits it back out. We carefully smooth it out to remove all small folds and make the bill as flat as possible. We try again. The machine spits it right back out again. We persist, and usually are eventually successful in getting the machine to accept the bill on about the twentieth try. Why is this? I am 55 years old, and it has been like this ever since I was tall enough to reach the bill feed slot. In this day and age, why can’t they manufacture a machine that will just accept the bill without giving us any grief? Thank God most of them now accept debit cards. I would have starved on numerous occasions if they didn’t. Easiest fix would be to make the damn things accept dollar coins. So much easier than bill readers. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/33 "2016-11-29T16:05:38Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Easiest fix would be to make the damn things accept dollar coins. So much easier than bill readers. most I’ve encountered lately do accept them, and many accept $5 and give dollar coins as change. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/34 "2016-11-29T16:15:23Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > When my niece’s daughter reached 11 last year, I asked for advice about a present. She said for me to transfer some money into the child’s newly opened bank account so she would be able to use her brand new debit card. Yes, I was going to say, this is definitely changing already. It’s not nearly as popular here in the US as it is in other parts of the world (see Sweden and their Swish app, for instance), but it’s definitely heading that way. I’ve been bitching about dollars and vending machines for 20 years on now and wish the US would get with the times and completely phase out the dollar bill (I really do not understand why people like these things), but, at this point, there is little point as card readers are becoming standard on more and more vending machines. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/35 "2016-11-29T17:14:23Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Easiest fix would be to make the damn things accept dollar coins. So much easier than bill readers. Offset by having a bunch of dollar coins in your pocket. I will acknowledge all the reasons the US should do away with dollar bill, then cheerfully admit that until they do, I would much rather carry around some bills than have a pocket full of metal. I don’t use snack vending machines that much, actually, and when I do I usually have enough singles to buy what I want. Vending machines that give back dollar coins, such as USPS stamp machines or day-pass machines at parks, annoy me, especially when all I have is $20 for a $6 park pass. Although stamp machines at the local post office seem to exclusively take cards now. The BEP could probably realize some cost savings by going to polymer bills, which last much longer. I suspect that once the vending machines are changed over to readers which accept the plastic money, they work better, too. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/36 "2016-11-29T17:18:52Z")
What **yabob** said. I franking _hate_ coins and refuse to accept or use dollar coins in any fashion. Switch to polymer bills and make them down to $.25. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/37 "2016-11-29T18:07:34Z")
BTW, picking up on small valued bills again, outside the OECD, it turns out that there are some countries with significant sized economies and small value bills. Looking at the top 20 GDPs, China issues absurdly tiny notes, and so do India and Indonesia. Brazil issues a 2 Real note worth about $0.60. Russia issues a 50 ruble note worth a bit less than $0.80. Saudi Arabia issues a 1 Riyal note worth a quarter or so. Number 21 may be worth mentioning, too. Argentina, which has applied for OECD membership, has a 2 peso note worth about 0.13. They recently allowed the peso to crash, but 4 years ago, the note was still worth \< $0.50. Argentina actually has a small change problem for either coins or bills - from wiki: > [@](#): > > Small denomination currency and particularly coins are sometimes difficult to come by in Argentina, especially in Buenos Aires. The problem has developed to a stage in which some shop owners will not sell items if the transaction involves giving the purchaser change in coins. It has also been exacerbated by ATMs, which tend to give out only 100 peso notes, and by bus companies, some of which will take only coins in payment and sell these at a 5–10% markup on the black market rather than depositing them at banks.[9] This situation has improved in the years following the Argentine economic crisis (1999–2002). Nowadays nearly all bus lines in Buenos Aires have a SUBE (Sistema Único de Boleto Electrónico; Unified Electronic Ticket System) smartcard reader, allowing passengers to pay electronically without coins.[10] ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/38 "2016-11-29T19:04:49Z")
It would be somewhat interesting to see what those low value notes represent in terms of buying power in their respective countries. A loaf (1 kg) of bread is about 50 cents in Moscow, so the lowest denomination note would buy it. I don’t think I could find two pounds of bread for a buck here. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/39 "2016-11-29T19:14:52Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > It would be somewhat interesting to see what those low value notes represent in terms of buying power in their respective countries. A loaf (1 kg) of bread is about 50 cents in Moscow, so the lowest denomination note would buy it. I don’t think I could find two pounds of bread for a buck here. Yeah, admittedly. I didn’t care to dig that far, but I was sticking to the large GDP countries. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315/40 "2016-11-29T19:19:54Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > It would be somewhat interesting to see what those low value notes represent in terms of buying power in their respective countries. A loaf (1 kg) of bread is about 50 cents in Moscow, so the lowest denomination note would buy it. I don’t think I could find two pounds of bread for a buck here. I should expand, saying that I like it when the highest value coin actually has some sort of purchasing power. In Russia, that’d be about three 10 R coins for a loaf of bread. I like digging in my pockets and find that the spare change I’ve accumulated during the day or week can actually buy something. I’m not entirely sure why, but having lived in countries like the UK or Hungary where the high value coins quickly add up to buying useful stuff vs the US, where they’re essentially forgotten or put in a change jar that gets turned in once a year or so, I’ve preferred the former. And get rid of the stupid penny, and possibly even nickel, while you’re at it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-t-they-invent-a-vending-machine-that-works/773315.md?page=3)