Seattlest: Coinstar: Ultra-Convenient or Bait-and-Switch Artist?

Dan

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:21:51 -0800

Direct to my email inbox: Dan/Ben: Regarding your recent Coinstar story on a consumer who attempted to purchase a gift card through our machine, was not able to complete the transaction, then was charged a coin counting fee... "There's a very hazy delineation between the principle of the thing and pettiness. Reader Karen I's complaint about Coinstar — those wonderful machine that magically transforms your sweat socks full of spare coins into hard cash — flosses that line as if it were a thong. Karen emptied a sock filled with $33.04 in coins down the steel throat of a Coinstar machine. Coinstar allows her to funnel the change into an Amazon gift certificate: this would allow her to convert all of her cash without the usual percentage Coinstar takes from the top...." Coinstar's policy for this situation is to refund the customer the 8.9% fee they were charged. Our business was built on customer service and we certainly don't want to charge a consumer for a service they don't want. If the consumer who has this problem goes to the store customer service desk, they contact us and we: a. verify (electronically) that they did attempt to put their change on a gift card b. offer the consumer a refund (some stores will pay the consumer on the spot, others have us send a check) The same applies if the consumer contacts us directly through our 1-800-928-CASH customer service line. The vast majority of the time our machine is able to complete this type of transaction with the card partner, however a bad phone link can occasionally create this problem. We are soon executing a software revision to resolve the issue. Ben - we are looking to contact Karen and offer a refund. Do you have an email contact? George White Coinstar PR

Christopher Michael

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 10:25:09 -0800

If their deal with Kroger truely is that they can only exchange it for cash then the machine needs to state that it doesn't allow for Amazon.com certificates. Otherwise thats just plain wrong. The problem is once you put the money in you can't just take it out.

Jozef

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 08:00:44 -0800

Funny; that's exactly that happened to me yesterday. Only in my case the fee was around $5 (8.9% of over $60). I, too, wanted to get the Amazon certificate, but when the receipt came out it said that I could only exchange it at the store for cash. I was not made aware of this option before I started pouring my coins into the machine. Upon contacting Coinstar I was told that their deal with Kroger (that's the store chain I used the Coinstar machine in) required them to only allow exchange for cash. I assume they share the fees with Kroger. Unfortunately, the nearest non-Kroger machine is 18 miles away, and that's not worth the $5 each six months or so...

davis freeberg

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 20:38:04 -0800

I can understand why she would be upset to pay the fee when she thought she could just get a gift certificate, but I wonder if she even bothered to contact Coinstar or to try and get the fee back from the store. I'm sure that there is a way that they could have refunded a voucher if it was really that big of a deal. If I was Coinstar I would send her the $2.94 back in pennies, nickels and dimes.