Wal-Mart refusing to accept change

[AHF]

This blew my mind. My daugher (3 years old) saved up money to buy a "My Little Pony" set at Wal-Mart. She had a dollar bill, several dollar coins and the rest was in quarters and dimes.

After graciously allowing my wife to pay for items with her credit card, Wal-Mart refused to take the money from our daughter with the clerk saying that they don't accept change. After calling over the manager, the manager said the same thing. The manager did helpfully suggest that our daughter could use the coin counter that charges $.17 for each dollar counted, but eventually relented and took the cash after my wife got upset at the idea of the store refusing coins (not pennies or nickles) from a 3 year old to purchase a My Little Pony.

Has anyone else seen this practice?

[EazyRoc]

That's BS. They were just supporting the laziness of the clerk. Wal-Mart cannot refuse money.

[Guest]

That's BS. They were just supporting the laziness of the clerk. Wal-Mart cannot refuse money.

Yes they can.

This idea of "legal tender" is typically misunderstood. Legal tender refers to payment of public or private debts. When Wal-mart sells you a toy, its a instantaneous transaction where no debt is incurred. The toy is exchanged for whatever Wal-mart wants to exchange it for. If Wal-mart wants to accept Chuck E. Cheese tokens they can. But they are not required to accept "legal tender" for a transaction unless a debt is incurred. Wal-mart simply refuses to accept the transaction, if they don't want to sell you a good in exchange for "legal tender" then at what point is there any public or private debt?

Illegal? No. Bad practice? Yes.

[frosgrim]

They probably put such a regulation in place to reduce register close out errors. The clerks were probably ending up with significant errors in their close-outs, thus increasing costs. The dumb solution was to refuse change. If this is a Wal-mart wide policy it is just another reason to not shop there.

[HawkItus]

Blame it on the fraud. Many stores stopped accepting coins even in a bank roll because people were cheating and filling them up with everything, but money. Also, they were misrepresenting the amounts. From what I understand you could have gone to customer service and had the change exchanged for dollars and cased amounts.

[dms269]

Reminds me of idiocracy. The people at Walmart just want to scan the product and hit a button for when you use your debt card/credit card. Curse you for trying to make them work and use their brain.

[AHF]

Blame it on the fraud. Many stores stopped accepting coins even in a bank roll because people were cheating and filling them up with everything, but money. Also, they were misrepresenting the amounts. From what I understand you could have gone to customer service and had the change exchanged for dollars and cased amounts.

The irony here is they said they would accept roles of change which can be misrepresented and fraudulent but not loose change which cannot be fraud.

A role of quarters is worth $10. My 3 year old doesn't have 40 quarters and a My Little Pony doesn't cost $10.

[HawkItus]

The irony here is they said they would accept roles of change which can be misrepresented and fraudulent but not loose change which cannot be fraud.

A role of quarters is worth $10. My 3 year old doesn't have 40 quarters and a My Little Pony doesn't cost $10.

Wow, that is dumb. Well hopefully it made for a good teaching moment for your kid and the adults who came up with that policy.

[AHF]

At three years old, I suspect the only thing she really understood is that there was some problem in checking out; Mom was getting frustrated with the people running the store; and eventually the people at the store allowed them to check out so she could get her pony. I suspect the "adults" administering the policy didn't raise the issue up to anyone with policy-making authority and probably just shrugged it off. If they cared, they would have let the 3 year old just pay for it in the first place or would have stuck to their guns. Instead, they initially tried to prevent a 3 year old from paying for an item in trying to avoid breaking store policy (probably wrongly interpreting that policy in doing so) and then decided that it was easier to break store policy (as they understood it) rather than deal with a frustrated customer.

I doubt there was much of a learning experience going on.

[jy23]

I hate wal-mart.....I really really do

[lethalweapon3]

Pretty much what everyone's said already... I'll just add this FAQ from The Fed. I needed the transit example (no pennies; ironically, they're the source for most of my dollar coins) to make it clear to me:

http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqcur.htm

Is U.S. currency legal tender for all debts?According to the "Legal Tender Statute" (section 5103 of title 31 of the U.S. Code), "United States coins and currency (including Federal Reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal Reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues." This means that all U.S. money, as identified above, when tendered to a creditor legally satisfies a debt to the extent of the amount (face value) tendered.

However, no federal law mandates that a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services not yet provided. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills.

Some movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations as a matter of policy may refuse to accept currency of a large denomination, such as notes above $20, and as long as notice is posted and a transaction giving rise to a debt has not already been completed, these organizations have not violated the legal tender law.

Only thing at a retail store that sounds remotely like "debt" might be layaway (Wal-Mart dumped layaway about 4 years ago). If Wal-Mart's auto service works on your car, is that an incurred debt? Or do they get around that currency issue with posted notices?

~lw3