‘The teller tells me that the bank doesn’t make change.’ Restaurant Manager Outsmarted His Local Bank Branch When They Refused To Make Change

Banks don’t have the best reputation for being customer oriented, no matter what the celebrities they pay try to tell you on TV.

They’re a bank. They care about their money and their policies and their policies that make them money. Period.

OP is a restaurant manager who, realizing there was no change in the safe, went to their bank to ask for change.

This happened a few years ago, I was working at a large national chain restaurant as a Manager. I was asked to temporarily re-assign to a location in a city about an hour away, and accepted…they put me up in a hotel, the whole 9 yards.

The first weekend I was there, I discovered that the GM had screwed up and not ordered any change (small bills/rolls of coins) for the safe, and that the local branch of our bank would be closing in the next hour. I also happened to have a personal account at the same bank, and had, in the past, gone and gotten change from the branch back home.

Since time was tight, I quickly looked up the address of the bank, grabbed $800 dollars, and jumped in my car. I get to the bank, wait in line, and then ask them to make change ($400 in $5 bills, $300 in $1 bills, and $100 in assorted rolled coins).

The teller told him they don’t do that, no exceptions.

The teller tells me that the bank doesn’t make change.

Me, thinking it was because they didn’t know me, informed her that our restaurant had an account she could look up.

She then told me, “No, we don’t make change at all.”

The thought going through my brain was, “What the hell? You are a BANK!!!” I tried explaining the situation, but was quickly shot down.

So, OP got his personal checkbook and went back in to close his personal account. When they asked how he wanted the money in the account, he asked for the exact bills he needed for change.

I left, went back to my car, then had an idea.

I went back inside the bank with my personal checkbook. Got to the front of the line, and (luckily) the same teller. Before she could even greet me, I told held out my checkbook and told her, “I would like to close this account, since this bank is no longer customer service oriented”.

She kind of rolled her eyes, but went about my request.

Then she asked how I wanted my cash back (an automatic response, I’m sure, and one I was counting on).

I said, “$400 in $5’s, $300 in $1’s, $70 in rolled quarters, $25 in rolled dimes, $4 in rolled nickels, and $1 in rolled pennies. The rest can be on a cashier’s check.”

No reason for her to deny it, so I got my change.

Then he went ahead and closed all of his accounts with the offending bank. Boom.

And the following Monday, I returned, closed out the other 2 accounts I had there, and I opened accounts at a different bank where I have been banking ever since.

Reddit’s gotta love giving a bank the finger, right?

Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.

These tellers need to remember it’s not their money.

This person says it’s because they’ve already sold their souls.

Way too many people have similar stories.

According to this person, it’s an American problem.

This story doesn’t surprise me at all.

I honestly wish it did.