Thursday, April 7, 2016

Coin deposit machines stealing customer money

Do daylight robbery like this would happen to Malaysia coin deposit machines in any of our commercial bank nationwide? A news reported by Daily Mail UK said a coin-counting machines from a bank were stealing up to 15 per cent of customer's money.

TD Bank, a United States national bank chartered and supervised by the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are removing their Penny Arcades after an investigation found they have been stealing customers money.

Penny Arcade

The cartoon coin-counting machines, popular with children bringing in their piggy banks, were keeping up to 15 per cent of the change, a report by NBC's Today Show found.

That means that a customer bringing in $300 of coins received just $256.90 back from the Penny Arcade.

Tests at four other branches revealed the machines were also stealing money, keeping $3.73 at one and less than a dollar at the others.

This is on top of the 8 per cent fee that is charged for non-bank customers.

TD Bank told the DailyMail.com they were 'disappointed' by their Penny Arcades' poor test results and insisted they placed a 'premium on the integrity' of the machines.

They claimed that lint, dusting and feeding in coins too slowly can all result in the machine giving an incorrect count although none of the Penny Arcades returned a wrong count in the customer's favor.

However, Coinstar counting machines, located in supermarkets up and down the county, were able to give the correct count every time in the tests by NBC.

On Wednesday, TD Bank announced that it was pulling all its Penny Arcades for rigorous testing.

A TD Bank spokesman told DailyMail.com that they had launched an 'enhanced testing program' for all their machines which would not be brought back into service until the bank were satisfied they met performance requirements.

'We are confident that the measures we are taking will help us to continue to deliver the service that our customers expect,' he added.

The bank, which says it cleans and tests the machines twice daily, said it will also be improving its maintenance program.

A Manhattan branch today had a sign taped over their machine which read: 'Penny's at a check up and down for the count at all of our locations.'

'We'll let you know when she's feeling better,' the New York Post reports.

Penny Arcade, which feature child-friendly cartoon Penny, have been reported for their inaccurate counts before.

Four years ago, a local paper in New Jersey found errors at some Penny Arcades but were prevented from bringing in county regulators to test them.

An ABC affiliate in Philadelphia then tested coin-counting machines including Coinstar, Penny Arcade and PNC Bank's Change Depot last month - only Coinstar gave an accurate count.

Source: Daily Mail