It finally happened to me, and It wasnt the elusive dream roll.

[TheRockDoc]

so yesterday, I was out and about, and I see a Wells Fargo, and remember that I have a few checks to deposit. So, I go in, hand him deposit slip, and ask the question.. Got any half dollars? Yep he says, I have $7.25 worth ( I should have known right then something bad was going to happen with this tard.) I kindly said, "well, thats sounds interesting, how do your fifty cent pieces come out to 7.25? He starts laughing and says, I meant to say I have $7 bucks worth. Great, Ill take em, I hear silver way before I see them, and I literally take 10 bucks out of my pocket, meet his stack and as he is putting them on the counter, lay my bill on my stack. he says, let me ask around to see if anyone else has more. Great, Im thinkin. Well, for some reason he takes his/mine stack and starts looking through them while asking. comes back and says, sorry, Im keeping this one, so I have 6.50 worth.... I says, B.S. let me see it, you cant do that. bad mistake, I should have just left. He hands me a mint condition 1925 stone mountain (actually I should have left at that point, and said keep the change). Instead of causing a scene, I just left, I had never seen a stone mountain before (or any other silver commen up to that point.).

Little prick.

Im still not over it, I am going to call the manager tomorrow, knowing it will not do any good other than make me think I might feel better afterward, even though I know it wont already...

happy hunting.

 

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[SFBayArea]

I understand that it was a nice coin but at least the guy told you upfront that he's keeping it. I've have many tellers keep coins or currency that I ask for. That's just part of the it. I would get upset of I saw a stack and they wouldn't offer me at least one or a few of them. This time it's just one coin. Tellers usually have first dibs on the coins anyhow. Yeah, he should've just said that in the beginning that he's keeping that one. At least he didn't lie about it. That's what usually gets me angry. It's a nice coin but you'll get another opportunity again somewhere down the road. I wouldn't let myself get too worked up over it. Grab yourself a beer and take the edge off.

 

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[danya]

I'd be mad too, if it happened at my regular bank.

I still don't understand why any teller would leave silver in their tray. Why don't they just buy it and take it to their car, immediately!!!

I don't understand it either. I once saw a merc and an IH in a tip jar at a restaurant in Boston. I asked if I can exchange a dime and a penny for them, and she told me no, that they are very old and valuable coins.

Wow, why do the idiots have the coins in public areas, then? What, is the restaurant too cheap for a $3 dime. Are they gonna sell it at a coin shop? Ughh, this is outrageous.

 

[quiksilver]

This has been debated many times. Different opinions dont change the fact that while doing business is not the time for a teller to take the time to perfom personal hobbies. The time to complain and ask about the coporate policy of tellers performing hobbies while doing business was then and there.

 

[ArkieBassMan]

You know penman77, what is weird, (by weird I mean my reaction to the ordeal.) First of all, for some reason I always thought that wouldnt happen to me, so when it did, I was so shocked that I didnt really "think" like I normally do. The whole time it was happening I remember being surprised that i wasnt "freaking out", and that i was handling it as good as I did. An hour later, I was completely calmed down, and didnt really think it was that big of a deal. I would have been fine had I left it at that. Like usuall, I couldnt just "leave it at that". I went home later that night, and I told my (non-confratational, level-headed, mild-tempered, sweet-heart, nicest, sweetest person in the whole world) wife, and she was like "WHAT" are you freaking kidding me? that would be like me going into a clothing store and saying, I would like these 3 shirts, and the teller ringing them up saying, oh, actually, I really love this shirt, so Im keeping this one, you can still have these other two though... I even asked her, "so it is a big deal"? She thought so, and couldnt believe anybody in a professional "customer service" type business would ever do that.
Still not the end of the world, but then the next day, I was talking to one of my very good friends, and he happens to work at a different branch of the same bank (wells fargo). He was literally in disbelief that something like that happened at a wells fargo, (he knows what they focus on, whats important to them, how they get trained, how the bonuses, work-bonus is partly based on results of the surveys that corporate does, etc...) My friend then told his own manager what happened at this other branch, the guy turned fuming red, and said just second, He went straight to his desk, and called this branch, got on the phone with the little pricks manager, and told him what happend. About an hour after my buddy told his managers what happened I happend to stop at the bank, and while I did my banking business for the 3 or 4 minutes I was in there, I had all 3 managers of this different branch come up to me and apologize up and down, and assure me that something like SHOULD NEVER, EVER happen, and the it NEVER WILL HAPPEN at their branch..... yada yada yada... So with all this being said, I guess it is a bigger deal than I originally thought too....

The "shirts for sale in a clothing store" comparison does not apply at all in this situation. The clothing store is in the business of selling shirts - for a profit I might add. Banks are not in the business of selling individual coins from tellers' trays (for NO profit)- even though they will often do just that. Banks are not coin shops. The tellers' trays are not displaying coins for sale. They are simply there for the tellers' convenience in counting the loose coin in their tills.

I do wish that tellers would remove all coins from sight that they wish to keep for themselves. It would prevent situations just as this. Even though it is not conducive to my CRH activities, I do also believe that the teller has a right to keep any/all coins that come his/her way. To think that you have the right to purchase a coin from a teller that he/she wishes to keep is no different than me being in line ahead of you at the bank, you seeing me purchase a few rolls of halves, and then demanding that I relinquish them to you because you wanted them, even though I got there first. The teller got there first in this situation.

Take a look at this example: Assume you work as a cashier in a quickie-mart. During your shift, a customer pays for his purchase with coins and one of those coins just happens to be a pristine Stone Mountain half. The next customer in line notices the Stone Mountain and demands that you give it to him for 50 cents. Do you have to? The coin technically belongs to the quickie-mart at this point. I contend that coin should be yours if you wish to keep it. You have first "dibs" so to speak. If you think the teller should have handed over that Stone Mountain to you, then you would have to give the coin to the customer in my example.

Of course the bank managers sided with you. You're the customer and customer service is important. A manager 99% of the time will side with the customer, even if technically the employee (the teller in this case) did nothing wrong, and the customer is completely in the wrong. Take this example: back in the early 1990's I worked in a home-improvement store selling appliances and electronics including TVs. We had a lot of problems with a particular brand of TV. They were cheaply made, and we had many defective units returned. Eventually, the store decided to no longer accept returns on any electronic device. We were told to instruct the customer to deal with the maker of their particular device directly. Of course I'm working the first day of the new policy, and sure enough not 10 minutes into the day I get called to the service desk to deal with an irate customer wanting to exchange a defective TV. I calmly explained the store's new policy to the customer. He not-so-politely told me that I was going to go get him a new television and take the piece of $@## that he was returning with me. Even though I, still calmly somehow, told him there was nothing I could do, he wouldn't budge and was getting more irate. To hopefully avoid a scene, (and to get him away from me), I called in the department manager. The manager walks up and the man proceeds to tell him (while pointing at me) that he bought this defective piece of $#@% from us ("awhile back" - he had no receipt), and that I wouldn't do anything about it. The manager apologizes to the customer, turns to me and says, "Go get this man a new television! What's wrong with you?!", and then apologizes to the man again. I was dumbfounded. That went on for about 2 weeks. After that, I just refused to go to the service desk, and that nearly cost me my job.

So, of course the managers sided with you. They want happy customers. They could care less about the coin, who gets it, or whatever. They just want the "problem" to go away without it costing them business or making them look bad. It doesn't mean that their decision was correct though.

Maybe you should have just offered to buy the coin from the teller. He might have happily accepted $10 (or less) for it. Thats what I do when I come across a teller with silver showing in the tray that won't sell. Often they won't sell, but I have bought a few 40% for as low as $1 each, and 90% for as low as 5x face. It can't hurt to ask. At any rate its better than causing a big fuss over it.

All my opinion of course - feel free to disagree