Providing a service the banks won't (Coinstar)

Member Name: norton501

Product:	Coinstar
Date:	15/08/09 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quick and Easy

Disadvantages: Only in supermarkets...

Coinstar machines are something I had avoided for many years- my impression was you have to cart all your change from your change jar to the supermarket, probably queue with other poor people to empty it all into the machine in full view of all the rich shoppers and then the machine would rip you off and take a percentage for its maintance and upkeep (and the new cogs and coat of paint it is saving up for ), then you would have to queue again with your coupon at the enquiries desk with a load of disgruntled people who were returning cans of cat food their cat turned its nose up at and shouting... all for the sake of a £2 return.....

Fortunately I was quite wrong.

Knowing cash was tight, I had for some time, purposely been filling an empty wine carafe with 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p 's and the odd 50p when I saw them lying around the house. I knew the day would come when we had 36p between us in our bank accounts and only salad creme and lime juice in the fridge and 2 weeks until payday...

"Right then, to Morrisons with the penny jar" ! We carted the now quite heavy glass jar to Morrisons in a few carrier bags and pressed the quick start green button. The machine is user friendly and asks if you would like to change your money into a voucher for cash or donate it all to charity. THIS IS THE ONLY BIT YOU HAVE TO PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO- we pressed the GREEN button to take the cash. The machine explains it will take 7p out of every £1 you put in (it is saving up after all too as it is trying to get a new paint job to impress the Girl coinstar machine that works in town.)

You proceed to tip all your money onto a mesh tray and lift a handle so it all slides slowly inside the machine.

The machine then makes a great clunking and sorting noise and tells you on the screen how many 1ps, 2ps, 5ps etc it is counting. It seems to deduct its 7p per £1 as it goes along so the subtotal being racked up on the screen is the money you are going to get.

When it finally has counted all your change, and you have retried to put back in the coins it doesnt like that keep falling into the rejected coins tray at the bottom but they get spat back out again, you press "i'm done" on the machine. Then when it has finished counting, it prints out something that looks like a tll receipt.

You then can either take this to the till and use it to pay for your shopping or you can go to the customer service desk and exchange it for cash.

From 1 wine carafe we ended up with £33 so it is quite miraculous how much change you amass. We had extimated £12 so were really nicely surprised- and it meant we could get some food in and atleast make it to payday.

I would recommend using the coinstar as most banks will only change four bags of pennies unless you are paying the money in to an account, unless you are a charity or unless you are under 16. Banks are getting more pickey about taking money and in particular do not like it if you go in with uncounted change to pay in to an account. Therefore the coinstar needs you and it won't scowl at you or say "we can only change £4".

Summary: Great machine and easy to use