8,800 Pennies To Pay A 88 Dollar Fine...

[Marguerite]

A man whose car was towed and made to pay $88 dollars to retrieve his car back wants to pay the fine in 8800 pennies.

8,800 PENNIES!!!

[Cold Heritage]

. . . and to think they're going to take tazers away from the police, instead of broadening the situations under which they can use them.

[Marguerite]

From the video, pennies are legal tender and are to be accepted as payment. I have no idea if it is true or not but if I were ever angry at a place for jipping me, I would be tempted to try paying them in pennies. Watch out phone companies.

[Kurzyk]

Those kids were really stupid and had no concept of what its like to be responsible for every cent in a till. Yea pennies are legal tender, but how can the person know that the three boxes of pennies added up to $88? She did the right thing and called her manager who probably said no way at first, then gave in just to cool the situation.

And also, didn't they hear of coinstar change machines? Not to mention that they're lazy and didn't want to have to roll it in a bank.

I bet they did it on purpose as a prank.

Bleh .. kids.

[Oniya]

Waaaaay back in the day, when I worked at Bradlees (anyone remember Bradlees?) there were occasions when people would come in with rolled coins, or even loose coins to pay for things (frequently boxed sodas, which made me wonder...).  Over in the cash room, which was just behind the cash registers, they actually had one of those coin counting machines.

We were instructed that, if we were confronted with rolled coins or a similar volume of coin, we were to have a supervisor take it up to the window and it was spun through the machines.  We could not accept rolls of coins without opening them - too many cases of someone putting a piece of dowel rod between two proper coins (in case the cashier opened one of the ends).  Once it was spun, the supervisor brought back the paper equivalent for our drawers.

[Sabby]

Hehe, reminds me of Aqua Teen Hunger Force... Carl and his hooker, and between them is a massive water container filled with coins.

"Aww, come on Candy, theres over 200 dollars in there! Oh, I'm sorry, I guess we're NOT in America. I guess I CAN'T pay you for sex, with pennies"

[Paladin]

Those kids were really stupid and had no concept of what its like to be responsible for every cent in a till. Yea pennies are legal tender, but how can the person know that the three boxes of pennies added up to $88? She did the right thing and called her manager who probably said no way at first, then gave in just to cool the situation.

And also, didn't they hear of coinstar change machines? Not to mention that they're lazy and didn't want to have to roll it in a bank.

I bet they did it on purpose as a prank.

Bleh .. kids.

Yes it was a prank and a damn good one. Still By federal law Penies are legal tender and have to be accepted. The woman and her boss were in the wrong. I mean the kids were friendly about it. Calling the cops was the right thing to do.

[Serephino]

That was just priceless...  Sure, they were being jackasses about it, but it was still funny. 

[Paradox]

This is somewhat unrelated, but I cannot express how irritating it is when I find people who throw out their change-- they just toss it in the trash can (it's usually pennies). One of my two jobs involved emptying about 50 wastebaskets on a daily basis, and I find about five dollars in pennies on a yearly basis. That's in one building. Imagine how much money people are throwing away across the United States. It's friggin ridiculous.

[Serephino]

I keep mine in a little trinket box.  When it gets full I take it to my bank where they have one of those coin counter machines. 

[Paradox]

I roll mine the old-fashioned way, that was I can take a look at the dates to see if there are any rare ones; for instance, quarters and dimes from before 1965 were made of silver, so they're more valuable. You can find some wheat pennies, and I even found a few steel pennies from during World War 2 when the government required a ton of copper for conduction in their naval vessels.

[Oniya]

I have a Mercury Dime around here somewhere (fair condition at best, so it's worth maybe 11c).  As it is, I'm saving my normal change in an old tea canister so I can treat myself to some new projects.

[Vekseid]

From the video, pennies are legal tender and are to be accepted as payment. I have no idea if it is true or not but if I were ever angry at a place for jipping me, I would be tempted to try paying them in pennies. Watch out phone companies.

Not necessarily. See:
http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/currency/legal-tender.shtml

[Marguerite]

Interesting and the officers in the video even had to check their booklet to make sure they could say the pennies were to be accepted.

[Caeli]

I keep my change in my pockets and empty them when I start chiming while I walk. XD I usually save it to take to the bank after I fill up my bunny bank. The porcelain bunny (I'll take a picture sometime, it's absolutely adorable) was half-filled, once; I emptied it out to count change, and had over $20 saved up over the course of the academic year.

But seriously. 8,800 pennies... yeesh.

[Kurzyk]

I just cashed in all my change from tips for the last few weeks and made $60.  :D

[Kurzyk]

Not necessarily. See:
http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/currency/legal-tender.shtml

Yes an example of this would be the little newspaper stand guy being asked to take a $100 bill at the beginning of the day to pay for gum.

No way. heh

[Inkidu]

Pennies are legal tender and they can be used to pay any debts public and private. However, the feelings of the person who had to count all that, are not subject to U.S. currency laws.

He's most likely to be called a "douche".

God bless Coinstar.

[Limoncello]

God bless coinstar is correct. I would feel the same way as the lady. Who would want to count 8800 pennies. It would suck after the first 1000. Though it was still a funny prank.

[Izu]

Muhahaha xD My old classmates and I did that xDD We were in 12th grade (last one), the last month before graduation and the school board forced us to gather money for the school to change the windows - like we cared, we were graduating, so they really shouldn't have made us pay for something we weren't going to be using, but in the end the headmaster said 'Either pay or you're not getting your diplomas' and we gathered the money, went to the bank and turned them into a bunch of 1 pennies and we took like ten bags to her office and forced her to count all the 800 dollars :3 It was the best day of my life. xD Hated this woman :x

[Lilias]

I used to work for a major public transport company. We had people repeatedly trying to pull that prank on us - paying a €48 fine in loose change. They lost their smirk when told that there was no coin counter on the premises and they had to go to the fares department, six stations away. Loose change is legal tender, but nobody can force an employee to waste work time counting it out.

On the other end, we had someone come in and complain because he couldn't buy a €0.70 ticket with a €500 note at the start of the day. Go figure.

[Paradox]

"God bless coinstar"? Are you serious?  They take 8.9% of every dollar (9.8% in Canada). I know 8 or 9 pennies doesn't sound like a lot, but it adds up if you're putting in a lot of money; you'd be better off taking a little extra time to roll them yourself!

[Oniya]

The ones in banks won't charge you if you already have an account.

[Transgirlenstein]

But cointstar also trasnfers all your change into Amazon gift certificates if you want them and doesn't take anything from it either.  You get all 100% of your change.  Its great for Christmas time :)

[Doomsday]

I could have done without the douchey narrative but otherwise this was just pure win.

[Satnslillgrl]

There was so much win in that video that I cannot even describe it. I work at a fast food restaurant, and I have jerks give me thirty dollars in pennies and nickels and we HAVE to accept it. I mean, they don't get their food until I get done counting, which I sometimes take forever to do just as a small revenge. I wouldn't do that just because they impounded my car, as long as they had a valid reason to do it. But if I called up to somewhere and they were rude or anything, I'd totally pay them in pennies.

I say Bravo to the three of them. They pulled off an epic prank.

[Paradox]

The ones in banks won't charge you if you already have an account.

Hmm. I'll have to see if my bank has a coinstar in the back, because none of the branch locations to which I go have a big green machine sitting in the lobby. Thanks for the heads up.

[Oniya]

It may not be a Coinstar(TM), but guaranteed they have some kind of coin counting machine.  It would be silly for them to have to count all their coinage by hand.

[Serephino]

Yeah my bank has one in the lobby that's free for customers and 8.9% for non customers. 

[Inkidu]

"God bless coinstar"? Are you serious?  They take 8.9% of every dollar (9.8% in Canada). I know 8 or 9 pennies doesn't sound like a lot, but it adds up if you're putting in a lot of money; you'd be better off taking a little extra time to roll them yourself!

That's still cheaper than what my bank pays to do it. I actually one chose it because it was catchier than "God bless me at four in the morning miscounting my dimes for the eighteenth time in a freaking row." I've never actually used coinstar but I am coin rolling challenged.

[Glossolalia]

From the video, pennies are legal tender and are to be accepted as payment. I have no idea if it is true or not but if I were ever angry at a place for jipping me, I would be tempted to try paying them in pennies. Watch out phone companies.

In Canada, you can refuse more than 50 pennies in one transaction. :) Legally.

[Trieste]

So he parked his car somewhere to go drinking. Probably shouldn't have been driving home anyway. But even if he was - he missed a 'no parking' sign somewhere.

And he takes it out on the woman in the window?

My question would have been, "How long did it take you to count this? Do you really want to stand there and wait while I count your pennies for (x) time? Really? 'Kay." And I would have counted it, in between other stuff I had to do, and made them wait. Not only would it have made a less interesting video for them to post up, but they probably would have given up after an hour or two, especially when I 'lost count' for the ninth time.

[Doomsday]

So he parked his car somewhere to go drinking. Probably shouldn't have been driving home anyway. But even if he was - he missed a 'no parking' sign somewhere.

And he takes it out on the woman in the window?

My question would have been, "How long did it take you to count this? Do you really want to stand there and wait while I count your pennies for (x) time? Really? 'Kay." And I would have counted it, in between other stuff I had to do, and made them wait. Not only would it have made a less interesting video for them to post up, but they probably would have given up after an hour or two, especially when I 'lost count' for the ninth time.

Could have happened, video doesn't provide a conclusion... :-)

[Trieste]

I turned it off halfway through, after the third cop car showed up. Seriously, do they have nothing better to do?

[Rhapsody]

Just because a type of tender is legal to pay bills and debts doesn't mean private businesses have to accept large quantities of them.  Otherwise, there would be no "cheque only" or "credit only" types of deals -- they would be absolutely, positively required to take coin and paper money as well.  It's a matter of what the business is equipped to take on-site as opposed to what the debtee thinks they should be able to pay the bill in.

The guy might have been put out by an $88 fee to get his car out of impound, but I guarantee you, he's not telling the whole story.  He wasn't as innocently parked as he made it out to be.  He was blocking a fire lane, or blatantly in a no-parking zone, or had outstanding tickets/citations on his vehicle.  Something.  They don't just haul away a vehicle because they feel like it.

[Beguile's Mistress]

A grade school teacher of mine came up with the idea of collecting pennies for a charity.  Then he stuck the pennies to strips of tape and gave them to the group we were collecting for.  Those poor people had to unpeel every single penny before they could count them.  A couple of us helped the group because we felt sorry for them

[Kurzyk]

On an odd side note, aug 2, 2009 is the 100th anniversary of the penny.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1913870_1913868,00.html?cnn=yes

Just an odd tidbit. :)

[Desan]

Who would have the time to find that many pennies o_o

[Oniya]

Pennies can pile up more quickly than you realize, if you're paying cash for things and not handing over pennies after you get them.  Assuming that the cashiers are giving 'perfect' change (i.e, 5c is always a nickle, never 5 pennies), roughly 80% of your transactions will give you at least one penny.  One-fourth of those (20% of the overall transactions) will give you four pennies.

[Doomsday]

I always tell cashiers to just keep the pennies, or I just toss them on the ground for the next superstitious dolt to come around and say "OH, HEADS UP!"

[Desan]

I always tell cashiers to just keep the pennies, or I just toss them on the ground for the next superstitious dolt to come around and say "OH, HEADS UP!"

Hahahahahhaha

[Transgirlenstein]

I just cant believe how many cops that took to solve it.  Seriously, is there no crime of any sort in that town?

[Desan]

Pennies can pile up more quickly than you realize, if you're paying cash for things and not handing over pennies after you get them.  Assuming that the cashiers are giving 'perfect' change (i.e, 5c is always a nickle, never 5 pennies), roughly 80% of your transactions will give you at least one penny.  One-fourth of those (20% of the overall transactions) will give you four pennies.

This is true...

[The Overlord]

. . . and to think they're going to take tazers away from the police, instead of broadening the situations under which they can use them.

We might want to broaden our thinking on tasering and gassing cops, given the zeal with which some of them hand out unnecessary force.

[Nadir]

Looking at this from the main board, I thought the title said '8,800 penises' .... *gigglesnorts*

Fun stuff, though.

[Marguerite]

Looking at this from the main board, I thought the title said '8,800 penises' .... *gigglesnorts*

Fun stuff, though.

Oh yes pay an 88 dollar fine with 8800 penises, sounds like a potential roleplay.

[Nadir]

Oh yes pay an 88 dollar fine with 8800 penises, sounds like a potential roleplay.

... I had a mental image of that scene from the Labyrinth where Sarah falls down the well of hands - but instead of hands there was... *coughs*

[Marguerite]

... I had a mental image of that scene from the Labyrinth where Sarah falls down the well of hands - but instead of hands there was... *coughs*

-Laughs-

Oh, nice one.

[Nadir]

*grins*

[TheWriter]

Am I the only person who noticed that $33 + $25 + $25 is five bucks short of $88?