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Coinstar Complaint - Theft by coinstar machine imo - false count

false count - Complaint
Review by da1woody62 on 2011-12-31
SPRINGFIELD, OREGON -- I took my precounted change to a coinstar machine in winco at the Springfield Oregon store, it gave a 5 plus dollar false count to coinstars favor. with no way to challenge the count.
Comments:
Posted by At Your Service on 2011-12-31:
If it was precounted, is there a reason for not taking it to a bank or credit union?
Posted by I love my son on 2012-01-01:
Is it really taking your money or is it deducting there fee for using the machine? I forget how much of a fee the one i used years ago was but it was a percentage and it was high like 7 percent of what was counted. some banks have them for free if you bank with them and i have counted my money to make sure it was accurate and it was..
Posted by trmn8r on 2012-01-01:
Someone posted recently that Coinstar gets 8.9% (!!!!!!!!!!) for using the machine. I have a hard time believing that - it's absurd. My bank has a machine that is free.

Let's see, if the missing amount is the fee, the OP would have put in about 5/.089 = $56.18
Posted by ChuhBaca on 2012-01-01:
I did the same thing several years ago. I know how much change I had, calculated the fee, and used the Coinstar machine. It definitely shorted my even when accounting for their fee. I haven't used one since and it doesn't seem that you have any recourse.
The stores housing these machines take no responsibility.
Posted by ktisnumeroUNO on 2012-01-02:
Coinstar does charge .9 cents on every dollar for using their machine. This maybe attributed to this loss..
Posted by tnchuck100 on 2012-01-02:
They charge more than 9/10 of a cent per dollar.
Posted by trmn8r on 2012-01-02:
.9 cents would be 0.9%

I heard it was 8.9%, which would be 9 cents on the dollar.
Posted by FoDaddy19 on 2012-01-02:
It's not a false count. There's service fee involved for use of the machine, it's often manifested in a certain percentage of the total amount of change counted. However some places will waive that fee if you opt to get a gift card to certain merchants, usually the one the coinstar machine is located in. There was no theft here, I suspect the OP just didn't know the policy.
Posted by raven2010 on 2012-01-02:
According to their website, it is a 9.8% fee in the US with certain exceptions.

Is there a charge to use the Coinstar Center machine?
Not always. For Coins to Cashâ„¢ service, we charge an 9.8% processing fee in the United States, a 11.9% processing fee in Canada, and a 8.9% processing fee in the U.K. Some retailers or financial institutions may choose to subsidize this fee. Coin counting is free in select regions of the U.S. if you convert your change to a nationally-branded gift card or eCertificate.

http://www.coinstar.com/FAQ.aspx
Posted by Ripped Off By Coinstar on 2012-10-22:
We had pre-counted (2x) change that we put into a Coinstar Machine at Walmart in Jay, OK - we had $58.00 (we made it even) and the machine counted $46.21 BEFORE the fee!!! Big rip off - DO NOT USE THESE MACHINES! I think Coinstar "assumes" no one counts their change first?! For people that need to use their change for food or gas...a $12.00 RIP OFF BEFORE THE FEE is a problem!! BEWARE is all that we can say - have told all our friends, neighbors and family not to use Coinstar!

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