"Somebody Explain That to Me" — Man Says Chase Bank Wouldn't Take His Loose Change
Nov. 8 2023, Published 5:50 p.m. ET
If you're familiar with girl math, you likely know one of its most important tenets: If you pay for something with cash, then it's free. For those uneducated, let me explain.
If you pay for something with cash, that means your credit card isn't getting charged and there isn't any money leaving your bank account. In other words, there isn't a record of the transaction. And if there isn't a transaction record, then it means that whatever you purchased with your vintage, old-school paper currency was a freebie. Voilà!
Now, I didn't make the rules, I just enforce them. That said, one of the wildest things about the 21st century is that most of the money we own, we'll never actually see or hold. Instead, the new normal is letting our whole life revolve around a number displayed on our banking app. It's as if physical currency has lost all its status as money. And the art of "making it rain" as Fat Joe and Lil Wayne showed us in the music video for their 2006 song of the same name is dead.
Why do we no longer value tangible money that you can hold in your hands? It's unclear. But one guy just learned the hard way that even his bank doesn't want his money. Yup, he claims that Chase Bank wouldn't accept his loose coins ... as if the idea of receiving actual coins produced by the U.S. Mint gave the tellers the ick.
A man said his bank wouldn't accept his loose change.
Real estate agent and TikTok creator Ryan McBay took to the platform to share some shocking news he received while visiting Chase Bank.
From his car, he began filming this video, which started with his showing viewers a plastic bag filled with an abundance of dimes. He explained that when he went into Chase to deposit the dimes, he was told they needed to be in coin wrappers.
"She said she cannot take loose change. $24 in dimes, OK," he said, seeing where she was coming from.
He continued: "I asked her, well if I go ahead and wrap these, I'm going to have $4 left in dimes. Can you take that?"
Ryan said she informed him that she couldn't accept his loose dimes and that Chase Bank's policy was not to take loose change at all. "They will give you loose change, but they won't take any loose change," he remarked.
He further asked her if the amount was an issue, and she explained to him that even if it was $0.20, she could not take the coins and deposit it in his account.
"I don't know why, but what the f---. Somebody explain that to me," Ryan asked, arguing that if it's only a few coins, then the bank should accept it.
In the comment section of his video, users were just as befuddled as Ryan.
"I can’t help but remember just three years ago when places were having a coin shortage and everywhere was begging for our loose change," wrote one user, nodding to the national coin shortage in 2020 which was brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Another user wrote: "Why do I feel like it’s illegal for them to turn down legal money?"
Meanwhile, a third user made a harrowing realization: "We’ve finally reached the day that even banks won’t take cash."
Ryan was determined to find out more information so he went to a different branch of Chase Bank where he was told that his rolled coins could be accepted, but not his loose coins. This ultimately confirmed that this was a Chase Bank company policy. When Ryan asked the teller what he was supposed to do with his loose dimes, he was told to "save it."
In the comment section of this video, one user argued that it would be too time-consuming for the teller to count the coins, especially when they had other customers waiting.
Still, Ryan never received a clear answer as to why his loose change wasn't accepted at Chase.
Our thoughts? Let's just chalk it up to bank math. Math that the bank does that will never make cents to us!