The Last Day of the Canadian Penny

[manhn]

I think it has been very recent that border towns will accept Canadian currency. That's probably due to the fact that our dollar is on par with the US dollar and Canadians make up more of their customer base. But it wasn't that long ago that business owners from Blaine, Washington would refuse my Canadian penny.

[kwanfan1818]

I'm in Vancouver, and there are a lot of pennies and enough dimes that make their way back and forth and get mixed up in BC and Washington State, at least.

[Erin]

I've never been in a US store that takes Canadian money on purpose. When I worked retail we HATED it because we couldn't deposit it at the bank, and so we just lost money. People would try to hide them with American coins to trick us into taking the money they got stuck with from another store. Vending machines always just spit them out, so you can't use Canadian coins for the most part. (However, I've never lived anywhere near Canada, so no border towns.)

I could maybe see that with bigger value coins but with pennies? It's not like you can use them in vending machines anyway.
One of the times it happened to me, I walked away from the purchase, so the store lost my sale which was probably worth more than a lousy penny.

[kwanfan1818]

This article from "BC Business" gives a clear explanation and examples:

http://www.bcbusiness.ca/retail/the-...tter+06Feb2013

[Habs]

I stopped for coffee and a muffin on my way to work this morning and my total came to $6.42. The cafe wouldn't accept my pennies, which is actually illegal. I understand that they can't give me back pennies in change, but since it's still legal tender, stores and banks have to accept them.

[pat c]

Last summer we visited the mint in Winnipeg. They talked about phasing out the penny, which everyone knew about. Anyway, I can't remember the exact amounts, but it was something like this, they lost about $13M making the penny, but overall the mint made something like $2B overall. Now if the loss was about even with the profit I can see phasing it out, but I dunno.......I'm going to miss the penny.

[Artemis@BC]

I stopped for coffee and a muffin on my way to work this morning and my total came to $6.42. The cafe wouldn't accept my pennies, which is actually illegal. I understand that they can't give me back pennies in change, but since it's still legal tender, stores and banks have to accept them.

Indeed. I'm sure it a misunderstanding, as far as I can tell there's been very poor "official" communication with businesses about this, despite the news being out there for months.

Did you have time to talk to a manager or owner about it? They really should be training their staff about this. It shouldn't be up to the consumer to do the educating.

[Habs]

Indeed. I'm sure it a misunderstanding, as far as I can tell there's been very poor "official" communication with businesses about this, despite the news being out there for months.

Did you have time to talk to a manager or owner about it? They really should be training their staff about this. It shouldn't be up to the consumer to do the educating.

I didn't have time while I was there, but I did send an email to the corporate office (it's a large chain). I explained what happened, but also that the staff there were very nice, but perhaps misinformed. I got a response almost immediately. They thanked me and asked me the location I was at because they're trying to help staff through the process.

[elka_sk8]

Of course, the one problem with this would be the occasional American vendor or cashier who has seriously told me that they would not accept Canadian pennies, handed them back to me, and made me fish out American pennies before accepting them. I only wish I were making it up. The same thing happened to me in Canada with American dimes, which I thought was almost as ridiculous, given that it was back when the USD was much stronger than the CAD.

I won't miss pennies, and wish the US would follow suit.

I grew up in western NY and intermixing of Canadian change was very common due to the proximity with the border. But at some point our school cafeteria decided they would no longer accept Canadian coins, lol. So now you had all these primary schoolers panicking if they were in line and realized they had a Canadian quarter!

I wish the US would follow suit too, pennies are just annoying!

[DarrellH]

Soon, The Beatles song will be changed to "Nickle Lane"!

[Norlite]

I stopped for coffee and a muffin on my way to work this morning and my total came to $6.42. The cafe wouldn't accept my pennies, which is actually illegal. I understand that they can't give me back pennies in change, but since it's still legal tender, stores and banks have to accept them.

I have no idea where you got the idea that a private business is legally obligated to accept your pennies ( or any denomination for that matter, think $100. bill for example), now, last week or last year.

It's bad business practice maybe. But illegal? No.

[manhn]

Well, I got another cup of coffee this morning that costs whatever dollars and 34 cents. Did I get rounded up? Nope. They gave me back whatever dollars and whatever-one cents back in change. I bet they realized that most of their customers are cheap and will use their credit cards just like me.

[Artemis@BC]

I have no idea where you got the idea that a private business is legally obligated to accept your pennies ( or any denomination for that matter, think $100. bill for example), now, last week or last year.

It's bad business practice maybe. But illegal? No.

You are correct -- although to be fair to Habs and any other logically thinking human being, it certainly makes sense that a business would be required to accept what is legal tender. But no, they're not.

Here's what the federal government has to say about the penny, by the way. Penny FAQ