http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20110606/od_yblog_upshot/penny-offense-man-fined-for-paying-fee-in-pennies

Quote :

"No lucky pennies here: Police have charged Jason West, an aggrieved medical patient in Vernal, Utah, with disorderly conduct. His alleged crime? Attempting to pay a disputed medical bill of $25 entirely in pennies. The story, reported in the Salt Lake City Deseret News, describes the "penny offense" this way: West, 38, did not believe he owed the medical clinic $25 but came in to pay the fee in person. He first asked the clinic staff if the facility accepted cash payments, and then dumped 2,500 pennies onto the counter and demanded that they be counted. But West apparently hadn't counted on the clinic calling the police; the arresting officer contended that West's protest served "no legitimate purpose." The charge carries a fine that can go as high as $140--and there's no word as yet on what currency West will use to pay it. West isn't alone in the ranks of penny protesters. A wise guy in Frederick, Maryland, showed up at the county clerk's office last summer with bags of cash to pay off his tax bill with $966.86 in change. And a New Jersey school district a few years back punished 29 students who paid for their $2 school lunches in pennies--possibly as a prank--with two-day detentions. After parents protested, the students were pardoned. The school explained that the use of the small change slowed down the lunch line. "

6/7/2011 4:36:12 PM

stop making threads

6/7/2011 4:37:27 PM

You have to have bills . PAPER MONEY. You can't pay with this!

6/7/2011 4:38:13 PM

Pennies are legal tender. By law, they have to accept the payment.

6/7/2011 4:39:45 PM

no he wasn't fined for paying with pennies



he was fined for slamming them on the counter, being irate, and demanding they count all the pennies.



biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig difference.

6/7/2011 4:40:32 PM

Quote :

"slamming them on the counter, being irate,"

Where do you see that?

6/7/2011 4:52:58 PM

second paragraph, last sentence.

6/7/2011 4:53:54 PM

Quote :

"students who paid for their $2 school lunches in pennies"

Reminds me of middle school when the school lost my gym lock and told me I had to pay $5. Paid in pennies in the most polite way possible. I got 2 days of ISS...

That same year, I got 3 days of ISS for selling oragami to other kids and another 2 days for selling my snacks during lunch time. I only got caught because I tried to hustle the dead beat kids who weren't paying their bills.

6/7/2011 4:55:29 PM

6/7/2011 4:56:11 PM

I am stategrad100, and I am civilized.

I carry dollar coins, and when someone is being a bitch about something I'll just use dollar coins because the application of coinage is implicitly diminuitive in our society. (I am not sure why - Euros are totally fine in coinage) So if someone wants to dispute a lunch bill or be a jerk, I just toss a dollar coin on the table to emphasize that the dollar difference is trivial. Everyone always thinks it's a quarter so I think it's funny. You get your point across without being irrational.

6/7/2011 4:59:28 PM

I used to pay for my school lunches with $2 bills. I wonder if I'd get in trouble these days under the guise of "slowing down the line" while the register lady oggled over it and questioned it validity.

6/7/2011 5:02:07 PM

btw this type of legislation is totally a slippery slope for persecuting extreme couponers

beware

6/7/2011 5:06:21 PM

kroger has a free coin into bill machine at the front of the store, FYI. No fees at all.

6/7/2011 5:08:14 PM

^Which is not relevant to the topic at hand.

6/7/2011 5:19:47 PM

PAY UP LAFTA!!

6/7/2011 5:42:59 PM

Quote :

"Which is not relevant to the topic at hand."

Might be too late for Jason West, but it may save a TWW from the same future fate.

6/7/2011 5:49:32 PM

Harris Teeter is 9 percent

A rip, but beats the hell out of out counting that shit up yourself

6/7/2011 5:50:20 PM

I love counting money. More than the count himself.


I'll count your money for 5%.

6/7/2011 5:53:47 PM

if I were a parent I'd raise hell if my child got any sort of punishment for paying for something in change. (at a public school) It's fucking legal tender!!

Now if he got punished for throwing it at the lunch lady... or throwing down 200 pennies just to be a jerk or as part of a prank like this guy did, I'd tell the school that it won't happen again.

Does anyone know (dangerous question for TDUB) if you're required to have coins ROLLED if you use them to pay larger amounts?

6/7/2011 5:54:57 PM

I love counting bills, bonds and bullion

But coins are just such a waste

6/7/2011 5:55:06 PM

He should have paid them in trident layers instead.

6/7/2011 7:03:25 PM

I like to count coins, why? cause when your done then throw them in a sock, it would be considered a deadly weapon.

6/7/2011 7:07:34 PM

If you pay with rolls of coins nobody will say anything.

I paid for lunch in rolls of pennies before at school.

6/7/2011 7:39:57 PM

Lol ncsuapex

6/7/2011 7:53:49 PM

6/7/2011 8:21:07 PM

6/7/2011 9:11:39 PM

^ I am surprised that wasn't accompanied by a "Goodnight, Sweet Prince(ss)". Haha.

6/7/2011 9:32:56 PM

its like the op didnt even read the story he posted

Quote :

"and then dumped 2,500 pennies onto the counter and demanded that they be counted."

6/7/2011 10:36:22 PM

I didn't see irate or slamming in the story.

Anyway, I'm surprised not to see a "Penis offense:" parody.

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 10:38 PM. Reason : ///]

6/7/2011 10:38:17 PM

Wow a thread like this has never been made.

6/7/2011 10:38:24 PM

i mean, the way it is written, it seems implied that he poured 2500 loose pennies on the counter. i imagine they didnt exactly stay in one place

and "demands to be counted" doesnt say "irate" to you?

6/7/2011 10:54:31 PM

Quote :

"Pennies are legal tender. By law, they have to accept the payment."

It helps if you know the actual law:

Quote :

"Answer The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," which states: "United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues." This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy."

http://www.financialcrisis2009.org/forum/Business-Finance/If-I-39-m-in-a-store-and-I-want-to-pay-with-ALL-PENNIES-do-they-have-to-accept-them-276872.htm

6/7/2011 11:12:41 PM

Don't pennies have about 2 cents worth of copper in them?

6/8/2011 12:20:20 AM

Pryderi~OEPII

6/8/2011 12:26:04 AM

Yes but you see they violated his civil rights by accepting pennies from some customers but no pennis from him. ^ ^ ^

What I am really getting at here is racism was at play.

6/8/2011 12:55:37 AM

It's not that they don't accept pennies.

They don't accept unreasonable sums of pennies that will slow productivity to a halt.

6/8/2011 12:58:01 AM

Or maybe these people were Republican business owners with a natural aversion to...change.

6/8/2011 12:59:13 AM

nice pun

6/8/2011 1:01:08 AM

Actually it's a hyperbolic double entendre.

6/8/2011 1:03:01 AM

What's the word for the feeling you get when you're not finished pooping?

6/8/2011 1:05:14 AM

Consternation

6/8/2011 1:07:10 AM

Quote :

"Don't pennies have about 2 cents worth of copper in them?"

No. It costs about 2 cents to make them.

It's about 2.5% copper and 97.5% zinc. Shit is worthless. It is not economically viable to try separating the copper from the zinc.

Now if it was a pre-1982 penny, you might be onto something. But even then, the zinc content is pretty high at 5% (considering that a lot of your copper tubing is going to like 99.9% copper on the high end to 95% on the low end). Then you run into copper oxides that ruin the copper and devalues the hell out of it.

6/8/2011 1:10:06 AM

my fuckin pennies gettin devalued and shit itt




so what you're saying is that if Uncle Sam paid its natl debt in pennies in a dickish move by dumping them on the figurative counter of China, we would actually double our national debt by spending twice as much money to make the pennies

FML

and what if you elected to pay your penny payment fine in pennies, then you'd get another penny payment fine and never escape the penny payment fine catch 22

fuck - so many paradoxes ITT

[Edited on June 8, 2011 at 1:16 AM. Reason : ]

6/8/2011 1:14:11 AM

buy bitcoins.

6/8/2011 1:15:00 AM

A few years ago, when the raw material in the penny became once again more valuable than one cent, a law was passed making it illegal to melt down pennies; then again, as merbig mentioned, actually separating the metals, even from mint-condition pennies, would cost so much that the margin wouldn't cover it.

6/8/2011 1:55:35 AM

1) always been illegal to melt down pennies

2) we'll know it's the end of the penny as soon as it's no longer cost-effective to keep the currency supply in the banks of the non-contiguous states, HI, AK stocked because shipping them from the mint is significantly higher than the benefit of keeping the virtually worthless tender there as is already the policy in some outlying territories (no pennies out here sorry bud)

6/8/2011 2:07:32 AM

In chemistry class in high school we used a nail to poke a little hole in a penny until we could see the silver (silver color not actual silver).

Then we dropped it in acid for a week or so, until all the zinc was dissolved and we were left with a paper thin shell of copper.

Pretty cool demonstration.

[Edited on June 8, 2011 at 2:34 AM. Reason : clarification]

6/8/2011 2:33:18 AM