Cashiers refusing Change for cash

[Sunseeker]

We have no place to store it. Our drawers are designed to hold only a certain amount of bills and change, so we can't just trade out $20's for pennies because there's no room for it. Secondly, even though it's technical value is the same, I can't give someone their change in nickles and dimes, especially when I'm dealing with a large volume of customers who need to be assisted quickly, or customers dealing with large sums of money. When I need to give someone $10 change, I'm not going to count out 1000 pennies, 200 nickels or whatever.

Secondly, this is a service that you pay for, either through one of those coin-boxes or a bank. I do not make any money off trading in your coins, it's not my job, you want to get your $100 in coins traded into bills? Go to a bank.

[Tradewind]

Not sure if this has been mentioned. I know Dollar Bills read:

This Note is Legal Tender For All Debts, Public and Private

Which means it is illegal to refuse to take it as payment. Coins on the other hand do not have this statement printed on them. I do not know if it means the rules are different, or if they just couldn't fit the statement on the coin.

Just food for thought.

No. Legal tender means it cannot be refused for payment of a debt when that debt has been serviced. For example, at a restaurant. The debt is incurred when you order and eat the meal, you are legally entitled to issue payment for the service however you feel appropriate as is the debtor legally obliged to accept it. In terms of retail services, no service has yet been completed and as such no debt incurred, leaving right of refusal up to the server/debtor to accept or deny the means of payment for the debt upfront. Ergo, it's well within the rights of the cashier at the supermarket to tell you to fuck right off with your stack of pennies.

[kassy]

dunno how it is in your country, but in norway you have to pay a small fee to exchange bills for coins in banks.

[Endus]

Not sure if this has been mentioned. I know Dollar Bills read:

This Note is Legal Tender For All Debts, Public and Private

Which means it is illegal to refuse to take it as payment. Coins on the other hand do not have this statement printed on them. I do not know if it means the rules are different, or if they just couldn't fit the statement on the coin.

Just food for thought.

As mentioned, this applies to debts, and debts alone. And it's not really as specific as you think, anyway. They can't claim you didn't have the money, but they generally CAN refuse to accept the payment if it's over a certain amount based on the coinage, in most places. That's a law that got put in when people tried to pay off big debts with pennies to make life miserable for the one they owed.

If we're talking purchases, well, they don't have to accept anything. All they have to do is refuse to sell to you and tell you to take a hike. They can do this for basically any reason they want to outside of a few that are specifically protected (discrimination based on gender/race/disability, for instance). If you try to buy a candy bar with a $100 dollar bill, the appropriate response from the cashier should be "the bank's around the corner, go get smaller bills".

[Tziva]

Way back when I worked retail, this kind of thing was a courtesy if the request was reasonable. If the drawer is already open and I have the appropriate denominations to trade, I would happily make change.

But we're not a bank. It's possible I don't have enough bills. I can't trade all the fives I need for giving back change for a large bill for a trillion useless nickels. In some places, you can go in the back and get more ones if you use them all up, for example, but many places only carry a set amount of money during the day for security reasons.

Also, in many places the register is locked and will not open without a transaction. People would often ask me to make change and get upset when I couldn't, but seriously - the cash drawer only opens if you purchase something with cash. I couldn't just pop it open and access the money any ol' time I felt like.

[Stormcall]

Oddly enough, I used to own gumball machines, and I'd have hundreds of dollars in rolls of quarters. Since I'm not generally an obnoxious dick, I did my best to get to the bank to exchange them, but occasionally I'd find myself making purchases with rolls of quarters. I always found it absolutely bizarre how many cashiers seemed to be personally affronted by the idea that I was handing them rolls of quarters. Some insisted they be counted out - OK, I'll do that, but I'm pretty fucking good at rolling them, so it's going to be right and we're just wasting time. I even had a couple people outright try to refuse to take them, but when informed that they can't refuse US legal tender they gave in.

Once at my store, someone paid with a roll of "quarters", which when opened, turned out to be a roll of nickels with a quarter at each end. At another of the company's stores, someone made a ~$50 purchase with rolled quarters. When eventually opened, the rolls were cylinders of cardboard, with a quarter at each end. Also, people most certainly can refuse US legal tender-many stores do not take any bill higher than a $20, and the fact that $50 and $100 bills are legal US tender is completely, 100% irrelevant.

As for why a cashier wouldn't give change for bills, it's because as others have said-typically, stores only have a limited amount of change on hand. At one job, when I come in the drawer usually has $8-12 in quarters. Now, if someone comes in and wants $10 in quarters, I either don't have it, or it leaves me with very few quarters for actual customers, so I'll either tell you no, or that you have to wait for a manager to bring a roll of quarters from the safe(which if they are busy, may take awhile). With my other job, I work overnight, and I do not HAVE a manager on duty, nor can I access the safe, so the change I have is ALL I have for the night, and sometimes for the next day as well, if the manager is off(Sunday, for example). So if you come in wanting a bunch of change, I most likely DON"T have it, nor can I go and get it.