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  #76  
Old 07-03-2020, 01:54 AM
Tico Tico is offline
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Originally Posted by tinnitus View Post
... What's a little irksome is when someone else decides FOR me and keeps the pennies without a word. In those cases, it becomes a matter of principle and I ask for my change. Recently, it really chapped my hide when that happened and the guy at the counter needed a co-worker to open his cash drawer for him. She asked him why and his snide-sounding response to her was, "He wants his pennies" like it was the pettiest Scrooge move he'd ever seen in his short, minimum-wage life.
A while back (long before C19) we ate at a very nice restaurant in a very nice neighborhood, and paid cash.
Even though the check did not total out to the even dollar, the change the waiter brought back was missing all the coins.
They kept the part of my change that was coins.

I called the waiter back, assuming he had made an honest mistake.
He said this was the restaurant's policy.
I asked to see the menu again, and it was not mentioned anywhere on the menu.
(Had it been there, we would have immediate left and told the manager why.)

Still, the waiter wouldn't budge so I asked for the manager.
She just repeated the policy so I made a big loud stink.

She pulled out a dollar bill and handed it to me.
It was a single bill she had ready in her pocket for this process.
Clearly I'm not the first customer to object to this theft.
As with tinnitus, it wasn't the money, it was the principle.

In a voice loud enough for other customers to hear, I let her know that stealing from customers is a crime and we won't be back.

Last edited by Tico; 07-04-2020 at 03:35 PM.
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  #77  
Old 07-03-2020, 01:58 AM
Tico Tico is offline
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Personally I wouldn't mind if America deleted the penny, but only if all businesses were required to round the total up or down to the nearest nickel.
Heck, while we're at it let's also get rid of nickels too and round up or down to the nearest dime.

In the long term it would be a cash-wash for the customers and businesses.
Actually, business would lower their expenses a bit by not having to handle and count two coin denominations.

No extra work for their employees as their cash registers could be programmed to do the math for them.

Customers would have fewer stupid coins to carry and hassle with.
And seriously, how many things can you buy today with four pennies, or even with 9 cents?

Last edited by Tico; 07-03-2020 at 12:24 PM.
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  #78  
Old 07-03-2020, 06:41 AM
CoffeeFan CoffeeFan is offline
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Originally Posted by Tico View Post
A while back (long before C19) we ate at a very nice restaurant in a very nice neighborhood, and paid cash.
Even though the check did not total out to the even dollar, the change the waiter brought back was missing all the coins.
They kept the part of my change that was coins.
I'd have looked at the waiter and said "Enjoy your tip."
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  #79  
Old 07-03-2020, 07:21 AM
619TF 619TF is offline
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Originally Posted by Tico View Post
Personally I wouldn't mind if America deleted the penny, but only if all businesses were required to round the total up or down to the nearest nickel.
Heck, while we're at it let's also get rid of nickels too and round up or down to the nearest dime.

In the long term it would be a cash-wash for the customers and businesses.
Acctually, business would lower their expenses a bit by eliminated having to handle and count two coin denominations.

No extra work for their employees as their cash registers could be programmed to do the math for them.

Customers would have fewer stupid coins to carry and hassle with.
And seriously, how many things can you buy today with four pennies, or even with 9 cents?
Ah yes, but not everyone has money to just throw away. Sorry but all those "worthless" pennies add up to actual dollars. Why would someone just give that away to a business that hasn't earned it.. especially someone who has little in the first place?

"Hassling" with coins? First world problem. Not an issue to basically always have less than a dollar in coins in pocket if one is able to do math. Good employees and savvy customers should be able to handle that without having to rely on a register to calculate. If you can count to 100 you can handle figuring out change and most registers seem to do that now already anyway.

As to the final point... almost every ad I see has pricing ending in a 9.That and the fact that tax rates often take prices to a number not ending in a 5 or 0 means yes, we little people need coins to cover that.
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  #80  
Old 07-03-2020, 09:34 AM
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tinnitus tinnitus is offline
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Originally Posted by 619TF View Post
...

"Hassling" with coins? First world problem. Not an issue to basically always have less than a dollar in coins in pocket if one is able to do math. Good employees and savvy customers should be able to handle that without having to rely on a register to calculate. If you can count to 100 you can handle figuring out change and most registers seem to do that now already anyway.

...
Excellent point but, sadly, that's assuming a lot sometimes. I bought something recently for $9.88 and handed the salesperson $10.13. I watched him shut down like someone had flipped a switch. Standing there paralyzed (seriously 10 seconds at least), he finally managed to mutter, "This is too much."

I told him, "Trust me. It'll work out, you'll owe me a quarter." The POS terminal ("Point of Sale" I recently learned, lol) did all the third grade mathematics for him and we were finally done. The stunned look on his face was priceless - something along the lines of, "How did he DO that???"

Last edited by tinnitus; 07-03-2020 at 09:41 AM.
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  #81  
Old 07-03-2020, 11:52 AM
Tico Tico is offline
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Ah yes, but not everyone has money to just throw away. Sorry but all those "worthless" pennies add up to actual dollars. Why would someone just give that away to a business that hasn't earned it.. especially someone who has little in the first place?
As I wrote, sales would be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel or dime.
It would average out to the same money, a wash.

Quote:
Originally Posted by 619TF View Post
"Hassling" with coins? First world problem. Not an issue to basically always have less than a dollar in coins in pocket if one is able to do math. Good employees and savvy customers should be able to handle that without having to rely on a register to calculate. If you can count to 100 you can handle figuring out change and most registers seem to do that now already anyway.
...
Not everyone is able to do the math.
Not all employees are good.
Not all customers are savvy.
So your 'people should' arguments for keeping pennies is weak.

Some other people will never be the way that you, or I, feel they "should" be.
But people are how they are, so public policy should accommodate this unalterable reality.

Should can be a dangerous word.
People "should" wear seat belts, not steal, not drive drunk, not assault others, etc.
But since "should" does not make it so, laws and punishments are a part of public policy.

Last edited by Tico; 07-04-2020 at 04:43 AM.
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  #82  
Old 07-04-2020, 04:39 AM
619TF 619TF is offline
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Originally Posted by Tico View Post
As I wrote, sales would be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel or dime.
It would average out to the same money, a wash.



Your argument is based on some weak assumptions.
Not everyone is able to do the math.
Not all employees are good.
Not all customers are savvy.

Some other people will never be the way that you, or I, feel they "should" be.
(... which is why 'should' can be a dangerous word.)
But people are how they are, so public policy should accommodate this unalterable reality.

People "should" wear seat belts, not steal, not drive drunk, not assault others, etc.
But since "should" does not make it so, laws and punishments are a part of public policy.
I think you misunderstood my use of "should". By that I meant "capable of" and not "what is best" (for them, for society, etc). Specifically, I simply meant that if someone can count up to ten they can make change. As an employee at a very young age they taught me to count up via going from the left side of the change in the register. Once you get to five you're done with the pennies and then you move to the right in the drawer. Just to write this out is far more complicated than the actual act of making change this way. Doing it is ultra simple really and that's why I used the word should (using the definition above).

Ther rounding down argument sounds nice but in practice any smart business person will know exactly how to price items so that all sales round up and they get to keep the extra few cents per sale. Again, pennies add up to dollars. Dollars that ultimately I worked my tail off to earn.

I really still don't see an issue here. It's VERY basic math and there are reasons the penny and other change exists no matter if you personally use or approve of said change.

Last edited by Kerbie; 07-04-2020 at 01:24 PM. Reason: Please refrain from profanity.
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  #83  
Old 07-04-2020, 06:05 AM
Tico Tico is offline
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619TF, we've both posted our opinions and supporting arguments, and still disagree.

I'll leave it at that.
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  #84  
Old 07-04-2020, 06:20 AM
Fogducker Fogducker is offline
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Everybody knows that if you go too far, you'll fall off the Earth! Yeah, and how come its always night in those Moon pictures!

Fog
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  #85  
Old 07-04-2020, 08:58 AM
Photojeep Photojeep is offline
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While this isn't the "norm" by any means, recently I've had cash transactions when the cashier or waiter simply ignored the fact that I was supposed to receive, for example, .23 back in change and gave me a quarter.

This seems to be happening more and more lately and I don't know if it's a sign of our new virus-caused "normal" or these vendors are simply tired of dealing with pennies.

I suspect the US won't be abolishing the penny or the paper dollar any time soon, if the attempt to convert to Metric is any indicator. That was a total failure on the government's part and I see the same thing happening here. It seems we Americans don't like to be dictated to.

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  #86  
Old 07-04-2020, 12:10 PM
Nama Ensou Nama Ensou is offline
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Originally Posted by HodgdonExtreme View Post
Dollar coins made perfect sense to me, but it's been tried (several times) in the USA, and Americans flatly rejected it each time.
They rejected the five dollar coin in Japan too. All my friends hated it until....they started making all vending machines work with them. Then it was a complete turnaround and they immediately became popular.

Dollar coins here faced multiple problems, only one of which was that no machines recognized them. There was the worst problem ever when they tried making them the same size as quarters and the reason they've been soundly rejected in this country is the fault of the manner of issuance and lack of infrastructural support.

Make them obviously different from quarters and adopt acceptance into all coin-accepting devices and they'll become as popular as they are in Canada and Japan.

Smallest bill in Japan is $10, and that's a good thing when they're putting tips in your jar.
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  #87  
Old 07-04-2020, 12:27 PM
Nama Ensou Nama Ensou is offline
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Originally Posted by C-ville Brent View Post
I don't have a hoard of pennies, I always carry them all (unless I get a wheat penny) and use them regularly.

I've also heard that it costs more than 1 cent to mint pennies. I believe the U.S. has made pennies out of other materials in the past, maybe during World War II. Other coins used to be made of silver, generally 1964 and earlier, so I'm not sure why the penny can't be made from another, less expensive metal.
First thing I put on the counter at the store is the change, then the bills.

Pennies don't cost more than they're worth because of the metal, it's the labor costs and I'd bet that all coins, not just the pennies, cost more than their face value.

Due to copper shortages in 1943 they made the pennies out of steel, but now they're copper coated zinc. Roll one out and you can melt it with a match.
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  #88  
Old 07-04-2020, 12:35 PM
Nama Ensou Nama Ensou is offline
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Originally Posted by Tico View Post
...the waiter wouldn't budge so I asked for the manager.
She repeated the policy so I made a big loud stink.

She pulled out a dollar bill and handed it to me.
Clearly I'm not the first customer to object to this theft.
It was a single bill she had ready in her pocket for this process.
Of course, as with tinnitus, it wasn't the money, it was the principle.

I let her know, in a voice loud enough for other customers to hear, that stealing from customers is a crime and we won't be back.
They're calling you cheap for not letting them steal your money when it's actually the other way around. If change doesn't matter, then they should remove it from the bill in the first place. Glad you held your ground with the thieves.
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  #89  
Old 07-04-2020, 12:37 PM
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I'd have looked at the waiter and said "Enjoy your tip."
Perfect!
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  #90  
Old 07-04-2020, 12:38 PM
Nama Ensou Nama Ensou is offline
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Originally Posted by CoffeeFan View Post
I've yet to come across a store which refuses to accept cash. They recommend cards, but they don't turn down cash money...
Japan. It blows my mind when you'll find large stores over there that don't accept credit cards, and then little ones that won't accept cash. If you go to Japan, just make sure you have both a credit card and cash at all times.
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