Quote from: The00Dustin on November 01, 2014, 09:58:18 AM

Quote from: ScryptAsic on November 01, 2014, 08:16:18 AM

Quote from: The00Dustin on October 31, 2014, 10:35:14 AM

Quote from: ANTIcentralized on October 23, 2014, 12:31:30 AM

Coinstar does not charge people 9% for changing USD -> USD, but they rather automate the process of converting large amounts of coins into a "format" that is spendable, as most banks will not accept large amounts of change/coin that is not "wrapped" by denomination.

The fact that a coinstar machine is expensive to produce as this kind of technology is not cheap (to count and sort coins deposited in mass) and needs to be audit-able will make it less likely that there will be a machine that converts change into bitcoin. Any operator would need to cover the costs of the machine plus some margin in converting their fiat into bitcoin

Interesting, every bank I have asked in the last several years accepts loose change, but not wrapped change (it has been 10+ years since a bank has accepted wrapped change from me). Most of them have their own coin counting machines and don't charge members to deposit the loose change. One of them even told me they don't have a coin counting machine, but will count my change by hand for no charge (and will not accept wrapped coins, and I was a member). We are only talking about 5+ banks here, but with 100% consistency, they accept loose change and not wrapped change, so either I live in the twilight zone, or Coinstar is for the unbanked and uninformed.

I have had the opposite experience. I have worked as a teller for a relatively small bank who would generally not accept large amounts of lose change (especially if it was unsorted), however would accept wrapped coins (we would write the customer's account number on the wrap in the event there was an issue discovered later on). As a customer of a number of large banks, I would see the same policy of not accepting unwrapped change, and when I attempted to deposit unwrapped change, I would be given coin rollers for me to wrap myself. I don't remember the name of the bank but it was a predecessor to capital one, that had a machine similar to coinstar in their branch for coin deposits; it would give you a voucher that you cold cash with a teller for everyone for free up to (I think it was) $15, and any amount over that amount you would need to either be a customer or pay (I think it was) 5% to the bank in exchange for using their machine.

How long ago are these experiences? Key to my post was the fact that it has been 10+ years since banks accepted wrapped coins from me. That is to say they used to. Maybe I should have said 5+ years to be conservative, but I think it really has been 10+. Regardless, the same bank that used to give me wrappers for free and accept wrapped coins later on made me unwrap the coins so they could count them. The bank that offered to hand count coins was actually downtown in a 100K+ resident city. They specifically said they would count in their free time and included the caveat that it could take days, but didn't want the coins wrapped. Every other bank I have been to has counted coins for free for members with a machine. Contrary to your experience, I have never seen a coin counting machine with customer access in a bank. That having been said, while I may not have made it perfectly clear when I said "coinstar is for the unbanked," in all cases, I was referring to services for bank customers/members. While it isn't too terribly relevant, I would guess that the bank you are referring to that counted up to $15 for free for non-members stopped doing that a long time ago, too, based on the service decline at most banks large and small.

All were within the last 10 years. Doing some research about the banks that Capital One purchased, I believe the coin counting machine was inside a Chevy Chase bank branch. The reason why the customer's account number would be written on the side of a wrapper when they would deposit wrapped coins is to prevent having to use the labor to count the deposited coins right away; in the event that it turns out that a wrapper was short then we could debit their account (I don't think we ever actually had that issue).

I would say that the reason why people could have up to $15 counted at the branch for free was to get people to come into the branch, have their coins counted, and then need to speak to a teller so they could attempt to sell them a banking product. You should really understand that $15 is not a lot of change, and if the amount being changed was even a penny more they would need to pay the fee or open an account, which would be another selling point for opening an account.