You’ve probably read articles online or seen television news accounts of irate customers protesting a bill by paying entirely with coins. If you haven’t, just Google “coins as payment protest.” There’s even this story about a Michigan woman paying her entire $569.81 adjusted water bill with coins!
Listserv inquiry
A post from earlier this summer in a listserv I follow inquired if others in the listserv had policies prohibiting customers from paying with an excessive amount of coins. Apparently, the poster has experienced this problem, or is at least interested in not experiencing it in the future!
Are you prepared to keep it from happening?
In an earlier post, I wrote about a utility that doesn’t accept cash at all, so for them this wouldn’t be an issue. However, if your utility is like most I’m familiar with, you still accept cash and, without a policy to stop it, could be susceptible to an angry customer trying to pay with all coins.
Most banks won’t accept an excessive amount of coins for deposit unless they are rolled. So, requiring any payment in coins (in excess of the amount of a roll of that denomination) to be rolled does not seem unreasonable. Also, entirely reasonable in my opinion, would be a limit to how much in rolled coins can be tendered for a single transaction.
