At the Guild of Geld

[steepholm]

I'm planning to visit a friend in Cardiff today. Accordingly, when I was in the bank yesterday, I asked the teller to change a ten-pound note for ten pound coins, because it's quicker to cross the Severn Bridge when you have the exact money for the toll, and the machine there only takes coins. I've done that kind of thing with no problem, on the odd occasion I've needed change, for the last thirty years. She eventually gave me three pound coins, a two-pound coin, and a five-pound note, but even that she did with reluctance, telling me that they weren't really allowed to give change and that if I wanted cash I should use the machine outside.

"But that doesn't dispense coins, which is what the toll machine demands. And ditto parking meters, the Clifton Suspension bridge toll, etc. How am I meant to get coins for these purposes, if not from my bank?"

"You could spend money and use the change," she suggested.

It seemed to me there was more than one flaw in that argument, but rather than argue the coin toss I left. But now I'm wondering: has anyone else ever tried and failed to get their bank (or any bank) to change money?

Comments

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Not a problem I've ever had in the US. But I have noticed on my visits to Britain that one accumulates change in the pocket a lot faster than here. And that's not just because your coins are of much higher value than ours. A two-pound coin is worth, depending on the exchange rate, $3 or $4 US, whereas our highest-value commonly used coin, the quarter (dollar coins are still viewed as odd ducks, and half-dollars are even rarer), would come in British terms to about 12 or 15 pence, which is ridiculous.

(One result of the US propensity for small-value bills is that almost all our coin-operated machines now also accept bills, and the bill readers are of much higher quality than they used to be, much less likely to spit offered bills back out for no discernible reason.)

The other reason I accumulate lots of coins is that, in my experience, strategic overpaying apparently doesn't exist in Britain. In the US, if you’re going to pay, say, $5.05, and you don't have a $5 bill so you offer a $10 or $20 instead, not only are you still liable to offer a nickel as well, if you don't do so the clerk will ask you if you have one. This practice seems to be unknown in Britain. When I tried to pay a £5.05 bill with a £10 note and a 5-pence coin, they looked at the coin with complete bafflement (and an overtone of "stupid American, doesn't understand our money"). So I just gave them the £10 note if that's all you have, and paid with accumulated coins whenever I could.

But tell me if I'm wrong or just had bad experiences.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Unless I'm anxious to acquire change for the bus or similar, or the sum to pay is very close to a round number anyway, I usually offer the person on the till the odd money on top of the banknote, and they usually thank me as they hand me the five-pound note (or whatever the change is) for saving them from having to scrabble for lots of change. If I haven't got it exactly, I offer, say, £10.40 to cover £5.38, and they give me a fiver plus tuppence.

A lot of machines do take banknotes now, though I think the notes have to be in reasonable shape - that's another good way to get coins, because if you put a tenner into a machine at a tube station you always get the change in coins.

On the original question, I can't remember trying to change a note in a bank recently. If I want coins for a float, I write a cheque and ask them to pay me in the denominations I need, which they produce in little plastic bags. One good development recently is that my bank has introduced a second ATM which offers fivers as well as ten and twenty-pound notes.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

The cheque-writing idea ought to work. But one thing I did yesterday was hand her my cash card and say, "Look, can I have ten pounds out of my account, please - in coins?" And she said she wasn't allowed to do that either!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Note-reading machines have improved a lot in the last five years, and are now in common use in supermarkets, where automatic check-outs seem to be pushing human cashiers the way of the handweaver. But they don't seem to have made it to toll machines, where you're generally expected to toss coins into a basket (which leads to a coin sorter), almost without stopping, rather than to feed coins or notes singly into slots.

I think you may have had unfortunate experiences with the strategic overpaying. At least, I've been doing it for many years, and although I've received the occasional look of incomprehension they've been few, especially now that most tills work out the change required automatically, reducing the arithmetical competence required by the cashier to virtually nil.

But you're right that change accumulates, and occasionally I find myself - much as I did when I was 8 and carried a piggy bank, or as I probably will when I am 90 - paying entirely in change, coin by laborious coin, just to be unburdened of them.

One thing I wonder about with US notes is - why only green, and so much (if not exactly) the same size? Doesn't it make it unnecessarily hard on partially-sighted people?

[calimac.livejournal.com]

They are exactly the same size, and yes, I wonder about that. Various elaborate schemes for punching braille in the paper, or cutting corners off the edge in some system that would not allow you to increase the apparent value by cutting off additional corners, have been proposed to help the blind, but none have been implemented.

Whenever I return home from the UK - or Europe, or even Canada - I find the drab identikit green things we have here to be unbearably dull.

Another thing I like, which kalypso_v's comment reminded me: In the US, an ATM will give you $20s and only $20s. I love the British ATMs: if you request, say, £200, some of them will give nine £20s, a £10 and two £5s without even needing to ask! Why can't they do that at home?

What's worse in the US is that human tellers have picked up the "We only give $20s" attitude (unless you specifically ask for something else) from the machines. They didn't use to be like that.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I have tried the automatic check-outs a couple of times, but generally end up with my own personal shop assistant having to sort out the mess I've got into. So maybe the people on the tills will just get moved sideways into helping clueless customers on the automatic check-outs. I think they're better off on the tills, though, as they can sit down.

That's the other reason why I pay the odd sums precisely when I can, to avoid the build-up of change (usually copper), which becomes very heavy after a while. But another factor is what they've got in the till in the first place. Sometimes they're running short of change and beg for it, and sometimes I'm loath to give it away because I'm about to need it on the bus. (Roll on the Manchester smartcard which Transport for Greater Manchester is trying to bring in by next year!)

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Doesn't it make it unnecessarily hard on partially-sighted people?

My grandmother used to have someone (usually my mom, sometimes an aunt) fold down the corners in a different way for each kind of note so she could tell what it was by touch.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

In the days of the Guilder in Holland, back when I was lving in Belgium, the notes all had Braille symbols so that poorly sighted people could tell which notes were which- this wasn't carried over to the Euro, sadly. A simple idea, but a brilliant one.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

I think that is a very good idea! Like you said, so simple really. (My gran didn't read braille, as she went blind later in life, but I daresay she could have learned the necessary numbers quite quickly.)

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

It's not unheard of, but they're not as used to it. I've started saying (loudly, because they stop paying attention once the note's in your hand), 'I THINK I HAVE 5P'. I don't need a wallet full of 5p and 10p coins, it gets heavy. :p

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

The other reason I accumulate lots of coins is that, in my experience, strategic overpaying apparently doesn't exist in Britain.

How strange. I'm British, and if I had to pay £5.05 and couldn't pay in exact money, I would invariably try to find a stray 5p. I thought everyone did it! In fact, if I couldn't manage to hand over a 5p in this situation, I would apologise. My observations in queues is that almost everyone does this, sometimes to extreme - e.g. by spending absolutely ages rummaging through several different purses trying to find the necessary 5 pennies. Also, I've often heard checkout people specifically ask people "have you got the five?" if they don't offer it themselves.

However, thinking about it, the whole transaction invariably includes a verbal element: "Sorry I've got no change, but here's the 5p," "I think I've got the 5p, if you want it?" etc. - so maybe people are baffled if they just receive the money without the ritual explanation?

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

You must have just been unlucky because I sometimes realise that I've acquired a huge amount of coins and then have a concerted effort to get rid of them by that exact method. It's important to offer the extra coins right away so they can enter the exact amount you've paid into the till, which then calculates the change. If you offer the note(s) first and then only later offer the coins in an attempt to be helpful, they will get flummoxed.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Yes.

I went round every* s*dding bank in Luton once, trying to change some money. They all said, "We could do it if you were a customer of ours," except for the one bank I am a customer of**, who said, "No, go away."

*This may be a slight exaggeration.

**I won't say which bank this is, but it begins with B, has eight letters, and has been in the news a lot recently.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It makes you wonder what a high-street bank is for...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I have thought of several possible answers to that conundrum ...

[sheenaghpugh]

Torching at the head of a frenzied mob.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It's certainly more convenient than going to head office.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

:-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

:-)

[leelowe.livejournal.com]

Not a problem in Germany, at least in my experience. There aren't many bank tellers left, and they don't seem to have all that much to do - or at least there don't seem to be those long teller queues that I remember from last century.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Here they keep the queues a constant length by reducing the number of tellers as occasion requires.

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

Banks are a***holes. I was in one yesterday and needed a 200 Euro note. "We don't get anyone asking for them". "Well I am asking for them".

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Bloody jobsworths - can't stand them. (See how complex I am?)

[calimac.livejournal.com]

What happens if you cross the bridge without a pound coin? Are there human-operated lanes as well as machines?

The only toll road I've been on where you HAVE to have the right change (or an automatic debit transmitter) is the positively evil Tri-State Tollway around Chicago, but that's a story in itself.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes, there are human-operated lanes too, but they tend to have longer and slower queues.

Once, though, before I learned the hard way that the automatic lanes only take coins, I went to an automatic lane, realized that my five-pound note was no use, and got stuck. There's meant to be an intercom button where you can call for help, but it was missing and the hole covered in black duct tape. I had to get out (illegally), bang on the booth of the nearest human operator and ask for help. She told me to use the telecom. I shouted (through the perspex and over the noise of the traffic) that the button was missing. [Repeat for 10 minutes.] Eventually she gave me some change, but she was considering calling the police, I think.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

That's--but they're a bank. They take and dispense money, it's what they do.

IDK. I used to be a bank teller and gave change all the time. It hasn't been a problem in Aber, but we do admittedly get wind of 'progress' far more slowly than them big cities.

I mean, wtf?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Were you a bank teller in Wales, or in the States?

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

In the US, and a long time ago, so admittedly not really relevant. But still it seems strange that one of the basic functions of the job could have become something they're not supposed to do!

[ellarien]

How strange. I changed a twenty pound note for two fives and ten pound coins at my high street branch about six months ago; the teller happily did it -- and one of the coins she gave me was a dud. Maybe they're protecting themselves from complaints about that kind of thing? As far as I can see I had no recourse once I'd left the counter, so I just swallowed the loss and was thankful I had an alternative to offer the bus driver, but I haven't tried again since.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I suppose the dud coin could be a kind of deterrent?

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Post office. They'll change a ten for ten ones with no trouble and even smile at you while they do it. I learned this trick years ago when I banked with the Royal Bank of Scotland, who disdained to bother with fiddling small change.

(I do a thing when I have a royalty cheque of changing some money into pound coins, or now into twonies, and putting it into a special pocket and handing it out to homeless people and charities until it is gone, so this has been a fairly frequent problem.)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

What a good idea!

Also, do you pronounce 'twonies' (which I've not seen before and would like to adopt) to rhyme with looneys or with phoneys?

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Twonie rhymes with loonie. That's what we call the one dollar coins. (What can I say? They have loons on them.)

[(Anonymous)]

Heh.

In Northern Canada, all the banks shut down ALL of their local branches except for the largest of cities. Instead, what we have locally is a plethora of privately-owned ATMs which charge breathtakingly extortionate fees. How about $7.50 per transaction? Worth it to you?

My answer is to draw cash from our locally-owned credit union when I am back home in Cascadia, carefully conserve it by buying as little as possible up north, and generally trying to stay out of the consumer economy for any transaction not workable by cheque-book.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

$7.50 is pretty incredible. It must be a honeypot to muggers, too, since at that price no one with a brain would visit an ATM except to withdraw a large amount of cash.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

It also unduly penalises the poor, who can't withdraw large amounts as they don't have large amounts in their accounts in the first place.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Very true.

[maellenkleth]

Far as I can see, it's mostly a tax on the daft, who can't figure percentages on-the-fly.

[joyeuce]

Last time I tried to get change from a bank I had to show my card (to demonstrate that I was a customer) and photo ID, and the cashier still told me she wasn't really supposed to do it and treated it as a special favour. I don't get it - I had handed her a £10 note, was happy for that to leave my grasp before receiving the coins, so how was it possible for the bank to lose out?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That sounds very much like my experience. Weird, n'est-ce pas?

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I do know that the banks charge shopkeepers for changing notes into coins. The woman who runs one of the newsagents in town told me after I had apologised for scraping round in my purse to pay for the paper and few other small items. (I'd gone in there thinking I still had some notes, but belatedely remembered that I had spent them!)

Since then I've often off-loaded my change onto small shops when paying for things and they seem happy to have it.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Well, that's useful to know: I shall try to do the same. It does seem a bit rich (as it were) that the banks charge us for handing over our own cash, though.