Coin Shop Problem

Why a letter if you do pursue? Maybe I'm old school, but for "my coin shop" I'd call or visit when the owner is in.

I don't see a good solution for you at this point though. Maybe see if it's still a big deal to you Monday and go from there.

Personally I wouldn't pursue it-- the deal is not final till it is paid for and I don't honestly see what the problem is.

BUT... if you do send the letter here's some specific items on your letter that should be changed:

-that last part about you being their inventory needs to be changed...I'm also not clear on what you were trying to say. I think I got it but
-I agree with the others that you need to reword the part about making you pay an extra $400, unless you actually bought the coins in question t the higher price.
-"enthusiast" is spelled wrong.

So were you wanting to send that letter, that's what I have to say...but were I to send such a letter or bring this to the attention of the owner in any way, I would try to be less confrontational about it. Make it clear what you want, but tone it down a bit. Something along the lines of the following, obviously with a little more fleshing out.


As you know I am a customer of your store, with over three years in repeat business. I am writing to inform you of something which occurred while you were out, all of which can no doubt be confirmed with a review of your security tapes. At approximately 11AM on saturday 3/19 I sorted some specific coins out of your silver bin at a prearranged price of x-- only to be told upon checkout that the piece was not x, it was $400 higher than that! In my experience, this is a part of the thrill of the silver bin, namely to spend that half hour, forty-five minutes and sort through the bin and occasionally come out ahead. That's why I do this! While I do understand that mistakes happen and these coins were not likely supposed to have been in that bin, the fact is that they were- and I would have expected your personnel to stand behind the quoted price. I do not believe it is fair to quote a price for something only to have it change at the last moment when your staff figures out it's more valuable. The posted price is the posted price.

In short, as a longtime customer I found this experience and your staff's reaction to it quite disappointing and feel as if I did the work for your people in finding these coins only to have them in effect taken from me at the last moment.

if you want to contact me (blah blah blah)

I could understand the Store owner catching that mistake, but I'm a bit surprised an employee noticed or cared. I always assumed only owners have to worry about profits and customer service while employees only need to worry about customer service....

Ive kind of seen both sides.. Once in a Best Buy I bought a product that was shelved in the wrong spot and thus under the wrong price tag(in the car audio dept). A store associate was helping me with the purchase and proceeded to ring up the purchase. The real price came up and she said "oh that must have been in the wrong spot." Now without me even saying anything, she said "well, Ill sell it to you for the price you thought it was." She called a manager and boom, price adjustment.

Now on the flip side, I once went through a drive-through at a fast-food chain and an obviously new employee gave me the incorrect change...like $15 dollars too much. I dont know why, but I told him his mistake and gave him the extra back. I guess I figured the guy would be fired if the register was that far off, he might even get accused of stealing from it.



I think the best thing would be to talk to the store owner in person and express disappointment, not anger, at missing such "a catch". Ill bet you come away with a big discount on a future purchase :)

That is definitely one way around it. Buy alot and not just 2 cherrypicked items that they may scrutinize.

Nod - I understand your disappointment but would be careful with the wording of the letter or your conversation with the owner. You have a long term relationship with the shop, and they can always decide that they no longer want your business over how the incident is handled. Of course you have the right to decide you dont want to do business with them. I really don't know if there is a good solution at this point to keep both sides happy. I suppose the dealer could offer you a discount of some kind on your next purchase but I don't know if that will be enough to offset your hard feelings.

With that said, it is this kind of situation (and other reasons) that we decided not to allow customers to cherry pick through the silver bin when I worked at a coin shop. One, it takes up counter space. Two, it takes up time and resources. Three, certain customers always picked the best coins and left us with the worst ones which other customers werent terribly interested in. We made it a store policy that if someone wanted $X amount of junk silver we would pick it for them. We might let them request certain denominations or a certain mix but they weren't guaranteed anything other than getting $X of the silver they requested. The biggest coin shop in town here has the same exact policy.

I guess the reason I brought up the last paragraph is that you sending in the letter could lead to them making a similar change in policy going forward. Something to think about...

I have to agree. I seriuosly doubt the owner or an employee pulled 2 coins from their "good" inventory & accidently dropped them into the junk bin.

IMO if the store doesn't want people cherrypicking their melt silver they need to either have a policy that forbids customers from digging into the junk silver, or they need to carefully check what goes into the bin.

I would let it go. Neither one of you lost anything and pursuing it is just going to cause hard feelings.

I am kind of in the middle on this one. If the store employees are so careless as to just toss coins into a melt bucket without at least looking at what they are throwing in there, and granted, I know they probably have a lot to go through but, that's just the way it is if you don't want to throw a mega-key date such as an 1895-O Barber dime in there.
On the other side of it, I would let it go and move on to even though I would be pretty upset about it.
Human error, maybe. Again, if they are careless enough to throw these coins in there, well.....

Is this the same shop you found that AG3 1916 quarter? If so, I'd let them off the hook from the fact that you made thousands from them. I do understand your excitement, and would be upset about it.

The scenarion in bestbuy doesn't work for this. If things get mislabeled to the buyer's benefit, they lost mone.

I can assure you that this dealer will not have lost money selling the 95-o for melt since he certainly paid less as a junk coin.

My position is to propose a compromise to the dealer. After all, you did find a coin for him that he would have otherwise sold to someone else for melt. I would offer him $150 for it as a compromise.