Mars Token Notes?

[mjwalsh]

Has anyone used or considered using Mars Token Notes? If they can't be counterfeited too easy it seems like they could be a good fit for gift certificates for our brand new Pet Wash & also for if we add bill acceptors in our self service bays & maybe on our Mega Vend. We had a party come in yesterday & requested to buy a bunch of gift certificates. So I was thinking out loud that it might be a replacement for gift cards or something to supplement other approaches of promotion. Feasible?

Please share your experiences &/or thoughts if you can. I see for one thing they require a huge quantity to get away from the over $2 per custom token note. Any potential workarounds or is their programming pretty well locked up when it comes to using one's own unique design & paper for a token note.

 

[Louise]

I have Mars token notes. I have a coupon for a free wash (blue) and another for $2 discount on any wash (yellow). You are right, thay a'int cheap, but I am glad I have them. Can give away a free wash to get new customers to try you out, can give a "refund" in the way of a coupon if you need to, and, when you have a back up at the auto wash, give the waiting customers a $2 off coupon to keep them from driving off. Also, a $ 2off coupon is a nice was of saying thank you to a frequent customer.

I have never had someone use a counterfit one.

Hope this helps.

 

[Randy]

There is no such thing as a Mars Token Note. There is a Mars coupon. Token Notes are only used in a Hamilton bill validator and they will not work in any other validators. I’ve sold a few Mars validator to operators who thought there Token notes would work in the Mars validator only to be very disappointed when they tried to use them. The Mars coupons are very expensive https://vendingcoupons.com and the Mars validator looks at them as cash. If you’re using the Mars coupons in an Autocashier and you put 2 $5 coupons into a Mars validator and purchase a $6 or $7 wash you’ll get back change, there is no way around it. We’ve looked them a few times but decided they are too expensive. I only know of one operator that uses them and he uses them only for refunds.

 

[Louise]

Yes Randy, you are right, they are Hamilton token notes. However, you are wrong about 2 coupons being used and change dropping. You can set the machine to only accept one coupon and reject any additional ones.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

Yes Randy, you are right, they are Hamilton token notes. However, you are wrong about 2 coupons being used and change dropping. You can set the machine to only accept one coupon and reject any additional ones.

What if I have a Mars "Tokenote" programmed so a customer can get my $10 wash and he chooses the $5 wash instead? Will he get change from my American "Auto-Cashier".

 

[Joe Law]

Mars note in American Auto

If the Mars note is a $2 note then the American will look at it as a note and not a bill. If you have it programmed for $10 it will not give back change if they select a lower value wash.

 

[MEP001]

I've had the theory in mind for a while that you could fool a Hamilton changer or auto cashier into accepting the Mars coupon signals as real Tokenotes. You'd be able to have a $10 value coupon and have no way for the customer to get change. A Hamilton validator outputs a combination of pulses to the controller that could be created from a PLC if it was installed inline on the harness, and all it would require is a rudimentary program to take signals that aren't just $1 or $5 pulses and turn them into Tokenote values. I could write the program in just a few minutes right now if I knew what the output pulses were for various Tokenote levels. My original thought for this was to turn the token acceptor output into a Tokenote pulse.