emsox

I just went to Wal-Mart and bought a money order for $1,000 which cost me 60 cents. It was as if they dealt with stuff like that every day. Didn't have to open the wrappers or anything. No hassles or questions. Made it out to myself and deposited it. No problem at all.

freqflyercoll

I brought my first batch of $1k to the bank today, and the lady was kind of surprised. I had used some of it for other stuff, but still have $800, and when she asked, I said my friend pays me rent in them. then she said yea, i've heard of someone else who pays with these, i don't know why...lol

darwin76

Somebody should tell that to cashiers and tellers.

rionio77

Seems like a good way to change out the coins if you don't want to make your local branch suspicious of your activity. Thanks for the info!

I think $0.60 is worth it (especially with amounts exceeding 1k), so I may try this out. It also seems like this strategy will put the coins into circulation, as Wal-Mart can eventually use the coins in their registers when giving change to customers.

Has anyone else been buying cheap money orders?

Dm84

I think a set of regularly occurring money order deposits that are payable from yourself to yourself could cause a bank to file a SAR.

darwin76

Most of us have plenty of accounts so that should be a non-issue, just as with the coin deposits.

I have to wonder how many people receiving AA for the deposits themselves did so by overloading one or two branches with too many nuisance deposits.

The key to long-term success with these deals is to never become a nuisance.

We can't exactly blame branch managers for taking a closer look when being overloaded by dealseeking which is out of the ordinary. It's their job to look and assess branch resource usage to weed out problem customers. We can make their jobs easier by not becoming problem customers. The point is to churn the coins, not to overload one bank with mountains of coins or money orders.

We get our own "hazard pay" for lugging around tens of thousands of pounds of these things. They don't. If we're killing their backs or creating too much work, it's only natural that they attempt to avoid it.

needtoescape

I have only made three coin deposits so far (ranging from $400 - 1000), all at different branches of the same bank where I have accounts with a high five figure balance. All three branches are in the same town and are only a few miles apart. I had no trouble or questions at the first two branches and got the "people ask for these" comment when depositing rolled coins. But, when making my last deposit, at a branch that is located in a small area of this town that obviously is a lower income area (I don't mean to sound like a snob, but there is a couple block area around the plaza with this branch that has a trailer park, pawnshop, check cashing place, a couple of really junky looking stores, and the branch itself is not as nice as the others in the area), the teller told me they don't accept rolled coins at the window because they have the coin counter machines (all branches I have been in have these). I nicely stated that the coins were new, rolled coins and that I have not had any trouble depositing them rolled at other branches. The teller asked the head teller, and after looking at one of my coin rolls, they agreed to take them that way. The teller than asked me where I got them (no other tellers have), and I used my prepared response of "my tenant". He continued to seem suspicious of the coins, looking at the tops and bottoms of the rolls like he thought they would be filled with something else. FWIW, my attire, day/time of visit, etc. was nearly identical to my previous deposit.

Anyway, I have no intention of returning to that branch with coins, but I was wondering if my experience there likely was related to branch demographics, and if other people had similar experiences with getting questioned or finding employees less willing to accept coins in branches that may have lower income clientele.

I'm curious because I have thought about maybe doing some deposits near where I work, and the area definitely is lower income and higher crime.

Thanks for any feedback!

greatwave

Has anyone bought coins and shipped them direct to your bank C/o of the manager?

deant

I think that would raise plenty of red flags with the mint.

QL_714

The trick is to find a bank that will accept them this way. If you do you are home free!!!

ramalama8

I think the point is not that the bank would mind but that the mint may not like that too much. Seems like you'd be asking for trouble.

lsk5013

One of the bank teller's today (who is now my new best friend ) told me, to "keep them coming...". She then told me that they don't mind at all, and in a quite voice said, "we don't even keep them as we just ship them back to the Federal Reserve so feel free to bring any and all hun".

Music to my ears!

fjord

Sorry for the late response, PNC.

thebat

Yes, she'd be my friend too! Amazing what makes a girl popular these days.
I live in CT too. I think we're too out of the urban areas for the banks to be aware of the FF miles issues here. Not one of my banks has mentioned it. I used to get a little flak about bringing these in, but I have reduced the number of each deposit to $500 or less. This seems to placate them.

lsk5013

I agree and I also try to avoid the lunch hour rush of people. I normally deposit $1k every 10-15 days which is a nice pace...

The other morning i dopped another order off at Citibank and that woman was like, "I have another customer who brings these in for the FFM." I find it safer to play dumb in these instances.