Quarter Thieves

[Blanco]

Anybody else having problems with people using your change machines like its a bank. Pre covid I never went and bought quarters for probably 7 years. In fact I would have extra and deposit them. Since Covid I'm having to buy about 3-6K per month. I turned my twenties off and still having issues. I understand there is no more coin shortage but I feel like the people realized its probably easier to come and get quarters from my car washes then the bank.

I think my only options are:
1. Take out bill changer and install bill validators at self serve bays and vacuums
2. Dispense tokens instead of quarters
3. Dispense dollar coins instead of quarters
4. Install a bill breaker and turn off $10 bills
5. Keep buying quarters

Anyone have any other suggestions or tried any of the above please let me know.

Thanks.

 

[Roz]

Easy solution. Convert your changers to dispense dollar coins assuming your coin mechs can handle them. You move the customer away from the 25 cent mentality to the $1 increment mentality. Solves the change issue and brings in more revenue.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

What Roz said...

 

[jack954]

i chose to lie to the public with this sign, as my changer still dispenses quarters. some people have caught on an some just don’t read the sign, but end result is i no longer have to go to the bank for quarters and my customers didn’t complain.

 

[MEP001]

My wash had a sign on the changer that said it dispenses a mix of tokens and quarters. It worked for a few years, then the owner at the time said he was buying $500 to $1000 quarters a week to keep up. At that point we changed the acceptors to take .984 tokens and he would mix about 10% in with the quarters which finally stopped the abuse.

Fast forward 15+ years and now it's my wash. I'm still throwing maybe 100 tokens into the changer once a month and I can go a couple months before I start losing a few quarters and have to add another 100 tokens. COVID comes along and suddenly I'm losing 5000 quarters a week, so I order 10,000 tokens and had to run 80/20 quarters to tokens just to keep up. I don't take $1 coins, so I just dump the tokens/quarters right back into the changer.

Bill acceptors in the bays or vacs is not an option. They would be broken into.

Dollar coins would not be a better option than just buying quarters. I would have to order dollar coins from the bank, wait a week, and pay $550 for a box of 500, which would still disappear, confuse my customers, and cause much more work for myself. Not to mention spending some $5,000 in coin acceptors, vacuum upgrades, and new vending machines (Mine are mechanical and the .984 token works fine in them with a coin mech insert that accepts them).

A bill breaker might slow them down, but some of them will get change, throw the tokens in the trash and leave. I believe the quarter thieves would be unfazed. I get a LOT of $10 and $20 bills and I would lose a lot of business if I turned off acceptance.

The worst abusers would walk around and sell the tokens to my customers, but usually don't come back. The ones I caught doing this I told them it's theft of service, same arrestable offense as shoplifting.

 

[Damoni88]

What I did was got a sign made saying Change for carwash use only. Then a made a sticker saying this changer dispeneces a mixture of coins and tokens that can only be used at this wash. I also turned off $20 acceptance. I do have bill validators in bays and vacs but all are wirelessly armed with my security services. I have never been to the bank to buy coins. The ones I catch I tell them something cause they park right in front of changers. I would never recommend adding bill validators cause it makes them a target. Once they go out I do not replace them and since cryptotap has came out I install the tap unit.

 

[Greg Pack]

It's great excuse to change to $1 tokens. The high security nickel plated are around .25 each. More profitable than a vending machine and minimal investment. I'm still getting customers putting twenties in to buy tokens. Greatly reduces theft attempts.

 

[chaz]

Whew.....by the title of your thread......I thought somehow quarters were being stolen. Obviously you want to provide change for your customers and not run low from the walk away coins.....but at least you are dollar for dollar even!

 

[bert79]

Precovid we had two change machines. One quarter changer and one dollar coin. Once covid hit and the bank lobbies closed we noticed that the dollar coins were disappearing more quickly. Apparently a lot of laundromats and vending machines take these (as well as apartment building laundries). We got rid of the dollar coins and made both changers dispense only quarters. Just wanted to share our experience. We do still have to buy about $500 in quarters every month and a half or so but we were buying dollar coins weekly.

 

[Jsshac]

I switched to tokens because I was getting killed on quarters. Changed all my acceptors to multi coin and went with a token the size of a dollar coin and valued at 1.00. I still accept quarters because a lot of people bring them. Nice thing is every token that doesn’t come back I make about .70 cents on. Is is a big investment and I didn’t want to do it but I was running out of quarters. It is fun to get the call that they wanted quarters for laundry and want a refund I tell them to wash or vac. Dunkin’ Donuts called and got 100.00 worth of tokens and wanted a refund I told them to hand out with every cup of coffee. Lmao

 

[I.B. Washincars]

Dunkin’ Donuts called and got 100.00 worth of tokens and wanted a refund

I wonder what Einstein thought he was going to get after he got the first twenty dollars worth of tokens?

 

[Jsshac]

I wonder what Einstein thought he was going to get after he got the first twenty dollars worth of tokens?

funny I watched someone go to the other machine after the put a 5 in and put a 20 in the other machine lol

 

[mac]

I had that problem and then just shut of taking $20s. Now my supply just stays the same. Don't know exactly why.

 

[Tom Thumb]

Anybody else having problems with people using your change machines like its a bank. Pre covid I never went and bought quarters for probably 7 years. In fact I would have extra and deposit them. Since Covid I'm having to buy about 3-6K per month. I turned my twenties off and still having issues. I understand there is no more coin shortage but I feel like the people realized its probably easier to come and get quarters from my car washes then the bank.

I think my only options are:
1. Take out bill changer and install bill validators at self serve bays and vacuums
2. Dispense tokens instead of quarters
3. Dispense dollar coins instead of quarters
4. Install a bill breaker and turn off $10 bills
5. Keep buying quarters

Anyone have any other suggestions or tried any of the above please let me know.

Thanks.

Had problem early on, put changers on timers off at 11 pm on at 6 am, problem went away.

 

[Waxman]

I vend 1 1/8" tokens and bays accept quarters, tokens and cc.

I bought custom tokens, which are good for marketing purposes.

This is the best way for me; no one cleaning out a supply of quarters to then use off- premises, plus you benefit from unused/ lost tokens.

 

[Blanco]

Appreciate all the feedback. I think I'm going to be switching to tokens. It seems like it would be the easiest and best way to solve this with out spending tons of money because I am getting sick of running to the bank every week for quarters. I hate when I see a car pull straight up to the changer. I wish I could set up a spike strip in front it lol Thank you all.

 

[DiamondWash]

I wonder what Einstein thought he was going to get after he got the first twenty dollars worth of tokens?

Probably had the same mindset that people in Casino's have "If I keep putting money in something is bound to change in my favor".

 

[Randy]

Appreciate all the feedback. I think I'm going to be switching to tokens. It seems like it would be the easiest and best way to solve this with out spending tons of money because I am getting sick of running to the bank every week for quarters. I hate when I see a car pull straight up to the changer. I wish I could set up a spike strip in front it lol Thank you all.

Switching to Tokens requires a tremendous amount of homework. You don’t want to buy a cheap generic token that anyone can buy. Call the token manufactures and get samples of what you think you want and then go to all your competition that uses tokens and get some of their tokens. You want to use a high security token that no one in your area is using so you don’t get any crossover, cheap tokens are normally an 85/15 or 80/20 alloy, Chuckie Cheese tokens are a 70/30 alloy. One of the problems we’ve had is when we reorder tokens the alloy is just a little different then the last batch that can be a huge PITA! We value our tokens at a dollar and we lose about 50,000 tokens a year. Our last token order 25% of the tokens we got wouldn’t work, slightly different alloy. We used a pure copper alloy token that is nickel plated. If you go to tokens do it right and do your homework.

 

[Mr. Clean]

Anybody else having problems with people using your change machines like its a bank. Pre covid I never went and bought quarters for probably 7 years. In fact I would have extra and deposit them. Since Covid I'm having to buy about 3-6K per month. I turned my twenties off and still having issues. I understand there is no more coin shortage but I feel like the people realized its probably easier to come and get quarters from my car washes then the bank.

I think my only options are:
1. Take out bill changer and install bill validators at self serve bays and vacuums
2. Dispense tokens instead of quarters
3. Dispense dollar coins instead of quarters
4. Install a bill breaker and turn off $10 bills
5. Keep buying quarters

Anyone have any other suggestions or tried any of the above please let me know.

Thanks.

Quarters are a necessary evil. I tried to stop taking them and it was disastrous. Our changers only give Gold US Dollar Coins. Bays accept both, but mostly dollars used. We also use the Coinless Mobile App to achieve CC acceptance.That has gone over really well.

 

[mjwalsh]

Dollar coins would not be a better option than just buying quarters. I would have to order dollar coins from the bank, wait a week, and pay $550 for a box of 500

If our so called public servants & media did their jobs in a needed fair minded way... that specific add on cost & availability problem would not exist!!!