The
CoinStar hidden profit conspiracy:
I don't know how many people out there have actually used CoinStar, but be careful if you do. Because the machine will rip you out of some good cold cash (that you found on the ground). Here's how a
CoinStar machine works...
You dump all your coins in it. (I saw a guy dump over $80 worth of coins in the thing once) It counts them all up, and within a few minutes, you get a little paper "
voucher" that you can turn in at the
cash register and get actual cash (as in bills). However, the CoinStar machines charge from 7 to 10 cents per dollar! That's worse than most state taxes. A 10% loss does not sound like a good investment to me, but still, it's a service charge.
Sometimes, if you aren't careful, you will pay for a service you never got. Ponder the following scenario. I go in and dump $10.96 into the machine. It charges 8.9 cents per dollar. The voucher comes out and says that I recieve $9.99 and that it charged 97 cents for counting my change. Not only do I lose almost a dollar, but I lost almost 5 cents over
loose change that I
still have as loose change! What do I mean? I turn in the voucher, and get a $5, four $1, and $0.99 in loose change, $0.99 of
loose change that the machine
still charged me for!
However, if I had just taken out a measly 4
cents before dumping everything in the machine, I get a nice new crisp $10, and a little extra number of cents even! I start of with the same amount ($10.96), and I end up with more than before($10.04 compared to $9.99). I still lose at the end, but just
not as much.