Town Institutes Limits On Coin Payments After Woman Pays $200 Sewer Bill With Change

Shh, you’re safe now, pig. (yoshiffles)

There is only one thing that happens when someone gets an affirmative reply to the question, “Do you accept change for payments?” You can be pretty darn sure the answer will be met with a whole lot of coins getting dumped on the counter, something one town wasn’t ready to deal with when a resident paid her $200 sewer bill almost entirely in loose coins.

The Pennsylvania town’s officials passed two separate measures recently in response to the woman’s nickel and dime extravaganza, with both the water and sewer authorities limiting the amount of coins residents can use in the future to pay their bills, reports the Erie-Times News .

Both boards’ resolutions say they won’t accept more than $10 in unrolled coins as payment, and no more than $20 in rolled coins in sleeves per bill. Customers will also have to write their names and phone numbers on each roll as way of taking responsibility for them.

It took four employees an hour to count up the woman’s loose change, sort it and put it into sleeves to take to the bank, the town’s executive director of the sewer and water authorities said. She used a few bills, but mostly coins from a full shoebox she hoisted onto the counter.

“They had never encountered a similar situation,” he said.

He asked the town’s supervisors to adopt similar rules so the entire town can be consistent and they did, writing up a measure for paying various other fees.

All over town, piggy banks are sleeping a bit more soundly at night.

Keep the change when paying Millcreek bills [Erie Times-News]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist