TD Bank customers feel short-changed by settlement

Americans get 26 cents for every $100 deposited in faulty coin counters

Anthony Parisi Sanchez dumped socks full of change into TD Bank’s Penny Arcade coin-counting machine every week for six years, turning hundreds of dollars’ worth of pennies, nickels and dimes into what he assumed would be the same amount in cash.

But media reports found the bank was undercounting the change. And this year TD Bank settled a class action case alleging that the machines had shorted consumers across the United States.

A Canadian class-action lawsuit filed in 2016 on behalf of people who allegedly were short-changed by the TD Bank coin-counting machines over a three-year period has yet to be resolved, said a spokesperson for Sotos LLP, the Toronto law firm that filed the statement of claim.

The suit alleges that the bank had learned of many accuracy problems with its coin-counting machines in the United States, but still proceeded with a national rollout of the machines across Canada in January 2013.

The plaintiff in the case is Lisa Ram, a Kitchener woman who says she counted and sorted her coins before she deposited them. Ram says she had a total of $854.25, but was not credited for $159.50 after depositing the coins, alleging that she complained to TD Bank, but they failed to remedy the situation. The claims have not been proven in court and TD has declined to comment.

Similar claims have been filed against the bank in the United States on behalf of customers who used the U.S. machines.

Parisi Sanchez, a 50-year-old Vineland, N.J., resident, said he received just $2 in the settlement. And he thinks he got robbed.

“This was a major deceit on the part of TD Bank, and I know I lost more than $2 (U.S.),” he said.

Parisi Sanchez is one of roughly 5.1 million Penny Arcade users TD Bank is paying this year as part of the $7.5 million settlement to resolve eight class action complaints. Like Parisi Sanchez, many consumers are getting single-digit payments. This reporter received $3.10.

That’s because class members are getting 26 cents for every $100 they made in Penny Arcade transactions under a formula used to distribute the settlement money. Individual payments are calculated by multiplying 0.26 per cent by the total amount a customer was credited from the machines between April 11, 2010, and July 12, 2017, according to a notice of the settlement, which was approved in January. The class action claims stemmed from an April 2016 NBC Today report that found TD Bank’s machines repeatedly undercounted coins. In one instance, a Penny Arcade counted $300 worth of coins as $256.90 —a nearly 15 per cent error. Today tested five Penny Arcade machines in total, with the other four units under-counting coins by substantially smaller rates, ranging from 0.0167 per cent to 1.24 per cent. The bank yanked the machines out of its branches after the report was published and agreed to no longer use them as part of the settlement.

The 0.26 per cent multiplier used to calculate class members’ payments is based on machine error rates found during tests conducted by experts.