Paying for full tank of petrol in pennies

arcon5

joe_purdy wrote: »

I work in a petrol station at tesco and i would refuse you because i'd have to count it all causing alot of problems for other waiting customers, im not unreasonable if someone came in with a few pounds in copper and we wernt really busy i would accept but i think £60 odd is just a bit too much.

Whats going to cause more problems and take longer:

- counting and verifying the amount given

- refusing the money, trying to find alternative payment, arguing with customer, filling out forms, getting managers involved ect ect

Googlewhacker

Pay the 8% and put it in a coinstar, yes you are paying for a service but at least you will get £55+

arcon5

There was a piece on the Jeremy Vine show a short while ago about some guy who finds/collects coins using a metal detector and tried paying for fuel with it. It was said the money was all cleaned before and it was his only form of payment. They refused it as they said it wasn't viable for them to check the authenticity of all the coins.

In the end they called the police who sided with the garage and said he needed to provide some form of payment or leave his details and make arrangements for such otherwise they will arrest him.

A quick google search should find the story, was an interesting piece.


But anybody deliberately going in with coins for the sake of seeing what would happen should get a grip. If you can't afford to get it changed and loose the 8% (or whatever it is) then should you be the owner/be responsible for a motor vehicle?

Outpost

arcon5 wrote: »

Whats going to cause more problems and take longer:

- counting and verifying the amount given

- refusing the money, trying to find alternative payment, arguing with customer, filling out forms, getting managers involved ect ect

How much of an argument would there be?

Copper is only a valid payment for amounts up to 20p. Anyone wanting to pay for a £60 fuel-bill with just copper is therefore unable to offer a valid form of payment and would be treated in the same way as anyone who filled up and found themselves unable to pay.

Outpost

arcon5 wrote: »

There was a piece on the Jeremy Vine show a short while ago about some guy who finds/collects coins using a metal detector and tried paying for fuel with it. It was said the money was all cleaned before and it was his only form of payment. They refused it as they said it wasn't viable for them to check the authenticity of all the coins.

This does no favours for the already poor reputation of people who spend their spare time waving a metal detector over the ground for hours on end digging up bottle tops and the occasional 1p piece.

Collecting copper coins for months on end that people consider so worthless they don't even pick them up when they drop them? Cleaning them and smugly dropping a bag of them onto the counter in front of a of a petrol station cashier thinking you've 'beat the system' or something, only to be refused. Get a life for crying out loud!

arcon5

Outpost wrote: »

How much of an argument would there be?

Copper is only a valid payment for amounts up to 20p. Anyone wanting to pay for a £60 fuel-bill with just copper is therefore unable to offer a valid form of payment and would be treated in the same way as anyone who filled up and found themselves unable to pay.

Although a very valid point, I doubt the average person knows this (its new to me also). If they was in this situation and confronted with this information, they would probably be too stubborn to believe it.

Outpost wrote: »

This does no favours for the already poor reputation of people who spend their spare time waving a metal detector over the ground for hours on end digging up bottle tops and the occasional 1p piece.

Collecting copper coins for months on end that people consider so worthless they don't even pick them up when they drop them? Cleaning them and smugly dropping a bag of them onto the counter in front of a of a petrol station cashier thinking you've 'beat the system' or something, only to be refused. Get a life for crying out loud!

:rotfl:

couldn't agree more! :beer:

Outpost

arcon5 wrote: »

Although a very valid point, I doubt the average person knows this.

But then the "average person" wouldn't need to know since they wouldn't have the inclination to walk into a petrol station with 1,000 1p coins.

It takes a 'special' person to behave like that.

sabz3008

I saw many YouTube videos which have people walking in to pay their parking ticket using coppers lol...In one news report, the police was called when an old guy was trying to pay his clamp release charge...police sided with the guy that got clamped, the clamping company HAD TO accept all the copper...

tom717

sabz3008 wrote: »

Right, so I have a jar full of £63.32 1 pence and 2 pence coins....Okay, not a jar - 2 carrier bags full!

I know from the Royal Mint website that 2p and 1p coins are only legal tender up to:

2p - for any amount not exceeding 20p

1p - for any amount not exceeding 20p

What is and what isn't legal tender is largely irrelevant anyway, as legal tender only refers to payment of debts. If you are buying something it is entirely up to the retailer whether they accept your money.

I used to work on a takeaway counter and we didn't accept scottish banknotes after getting stung with a few fake ones, and a lot of people would insist I had to accept their money as its legal tender but we were well within our rights not to.

edit: Just done some checking and it turns out Scottish notes aren't even legal tender in England. From the Bank of England FAQ:

Are Scottish & Northern Irish notes legal tender?
In short ‘No’ these notes are not legal tender; only Bank of England notes are legal tender but only in England and Wales.
The term legal tender does not in itself govern the acceptability of banknotes in transactions. Whether or not notes have legal tender status, their acceptability as a means of payment is essentially a matter for agreement between the parties involved. Legal tender has a very narrow technical meaning in relation to the settlement of debt. If a debtor pays in legal tender the exact amount he owes under the terms of a contract, he has good defence in law if he is subsequently sued for non-payment of the debt. In ordinary everyday transactions, the term ‘legal tender’ has very little practical application.

Money_User

sabz3008 wrote: »

In one news report, the police was called when an old guy was trying to pay his clamp release charge...police sided with the guy that got clamped, the clamping company HAD TO accept all the copper...

Can you post the link as they are wrong, coppers are only legal tender up to 20p, the police have no say in this issue which makes your post very suspect.