[jrockway]

Interesting. I always found those machines to be annoyingly slow and loud.

My theory with money: the less your customer has, the more important appearances are. Go to your local bank and look at how nicely dressed the tellers that are cashing grandma's $20 check, and then go to their trading floor and look at the traders that are trading millions of dollars a day.

In the case of Coinstar, every penny is important to the customer, even though a penny is worth approximately nothing. (And of course, they take 10% anyway, so their incentive is to over-count, not under-count, but I digress...)

[colanderman]

No, the incentive would be for them to undercount as the money still ends up in the machine. $10 in the machine counted as $10 nets $1 in profit. $10 in the machine counted as $9 nets $1.90 in profit.

[Tangurena]

This would kill their business as TV news programs would show counting the money before it went into the machine and how much the machine claimed was counted. The fees that Coinstar rakes in are enough to ensure a great profit margin without actually stooping to miscounting coins.

[jrockway]

Yeah, you're right; my logic is flawed. You insert $100 of coins, it says, "no coins inserted, try again". Instant profit :)

[phsr]

When you get a gift card from Coinstar, you are not charged the 10%. So when I'm feeling lazy with a bunch of change, I just dump it in the Coinstar machine for a Amazon gift card

[jrockway]

Interestingly, the Coinstar machine that I use is in a grocery store, and it will give you free gift certificates for that store. I am not sure who would not choose that :)

[josephcooney]

This is an interesting definition of 'free', since you have to pay for it.

[graywh]

I read once that you could request a gift card and unplug the machine's phone line, causing it to give you the full cash value.

http://www.antiyawn.com/guidetocoinstar.html

[ams6110]

I never knew this. Of course, they are just charging Amazon the 10%, and ultimately this gets passed back to the consumer (though much diluted).

[roofone]

> My theory with money: the less your customer has, the more important appearances are.

Your specific example may have more to do with proximity to the customer.

[smallblacksun]

I don't think it relates to the amount of money, but about gaining trust. People are more willing to trust someone with their money if they look professional, thus the tellers wearing suits and the fancy lobbies in banks. The traders don't need to gain anyone's trust, so there is no incentive. Similarly, the secretaries and PR people at the software company I work for wear suits, while the programmers wear jeans and a t-shirt.

[dedward]

Not necessarily the best examples - traders who are trading millions of dollars a day may be living in a flat with no furniture and be in debt up to their eyeballs. Just because they are trading other people's money a lot doesn't necessarily mean they're in the black.

[jrockway]

I didn't say they were. I just said they don't wear suits to work, and then implied that their work is more important to the bank (in terms of raw money-per-transaction) than the nicer-dressing tellers.

[jseliger]

Interesting. I always found those machines to be annoyingly slow and loud.

Me too. I always found it bizarre that they're so slow. The OP would certainly explain things.