In 2016, the NBC Today Show aired a story and broke the news that the machines in the TD Bank branches were undercounting customer’s change. This means that consumers would put in their collection of coins and be paid out in dollars LESS than the coins added up to. It then took the Bank months to remove all the coin counters.
In July of this year, U.S. District Court, Jerome Simandle, approved a $9 million settlement against the bank what will result in nearly $7.5 million being shelled out among those who used the machines from any date after April 11, 2010. Any customer who used the coin-counting machine will automatically get paid from the settlement. However, even individuals who are non-account holders can submit a a claim to get there share. Monday, August 28th, 2017 was the first day that people are allowed to submit such claims. In fact, over the weekend you may have received an email from TD bank notifying you of the recent settlement.
Despite $7.5 million being allocated to customers, payment will not be life changing. The machines that were tested undercounted by .117 and .090 percent, but the payout serving as punishment to the banks will be .26 percent. This percentage is higher than the percent error of the machines during the testing. However, testing done by staffers at the Today Show found that the machines undercounted a $300 jar of coins by up to $43.10!
If you plan on submitting a claim, documentation will be important. You must submit the date of the counting, the amount of the transaction and any sufficient documentation if available. Non-customers who do not have documentation will only be allowed to file a claim of $500 in coins, which is only $1.30! So while getting paid a fraction of a penny for every dollar counted, it is still better than nothing. And while it is unlikely that any one individual person will collect a large lump sum from the bank, collectively the $9 million in damages that TD must pay, might encourage better testing of machines before they are put in place. Hopefully these machines were not designed with the intent of stealing from customers.