[...] Yet, once again, an attractive coin may spur collectors, add some fun and the average citizen may hoard more of the coins because they look great, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to used or carried around for change! In this day and age, many people will actually PAY MONEY to get rid of their lose change! [...]
My experience has been that these machines are heavily used by low-income people and those with limited English skills. Without getting into the language debate, it seems to me that Coinstar and its ilk are the coin equivalent of payday lenders and rent-to-own stores, taking advantage of people who don’t have the knowledge or wherewithal to seek out alternatives. Often, when I try to inform a Coinstar user that there are places (at least in my region) that will redeem coins for free, they tell me they have no idea how or where to do that.
OK, we’ve already got gobs of government micromanaging, but if payday lenders etc. are being reined in and ATMs are required to allow you to cancel before incurring a transaction fee, why shouldn’t these coin-counting machines at a minimum require users to acknowledge the 10% “convenience” charge and inform them that other sources may charge less/nothing?
August 27th, 2007 at 11:49 am
[...] Yet, once again, an attractive coin may spur collectors, add some fun and the average citizen may hoard more of the coins because they look great, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to used or carried around for change! In this day and age, many people will actually PAY MONEY to get rid of their lose change! [...]
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:20 pm
My experience has been that these machines are heavily used by low-income people and those with limited English skills. Without getting into the language debate, it seems to me that Coinstar and its ilk are the coin equivalent of payday lenders and rent-to-own stores, taking advantage of people who don’t have the knowledge or wherewithal to seek out alternatives. Often, when I try to inform a Coinstar user that there are places (at least in my region) that will redeem coins for free, they tell me they have no idea how or where to do that.
OK, we’ve already got gobs of government micromanaging, but if payday lenders etc. are being reined in and ATMs are required to allow you to cancel before incurring a transaction fee, why shouldn’t these coin-counting machines at a minimum require users to acknowledge the 10% “convenience” charge and inform them that other sources may charge less/nothing?