Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Change you can't believe in


I moved to D.C. the day after graduation. This jar is one of the many things on my to-do list that remained undone. It's silly to haul 10 lbs. of spare change across the country in a moving truck, but today something even more ridiculous happened. I'm finally short enough on cash to take this heavy haul to the bank; now I'm back from the bank but I still have the jar of change. Is it because I like to carry heavy bags around town? Is it because I hate my back and I'm deliberately trying to break it? No. I still have the money because the bank refused to take it.

Apparently the bank of America won't cash in spare change for their customers unless it's in rolls. The teller apologized and offered me some empty rolls to fill in my spare time and bring them back. She also gave me the other option of having it sent somewhere off-site to be counted for a $5 charge. Maybe it's just the branch near my apartment (3 excruciating blocks away) or maybe Bank of America is just too big to deal with spare change. The question is, what do I do with it now? Use it to buy groceries? Sell it on eBay?

I've never been to a bank that didn't have a machine on-site to count change. Usually it's free for customers and a couple of bucks for everyone else. I pondered this as I walked home (between whimpers of "Ouch - my back!") Is this just a Midwestern thing? How presumptuous of me to bring money into my bank and expect them to just put it in my account.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of! The banks here in Iowa prefer the change not to be in wrapper because you could "short change" the count. They rely on the machines to count for you. They sure do things opposite in DC!

Anonymous said...

How insane! Hmmm, sorry you had to lug your change all the way there and back.

[F]oxymoron said...

What! That is absurd. I have a few pounds of change too... thanks for the heads up.

Anonymous said...

that is it you need to move back to Leland Farmers state bank will take it

Anonymous said...

A friend was just talking about banks not taking change so I had to have him read this blog!