Adventures with Coinstar machines in London

An open letter to Coinstar:

I live in London. I'm originally from Seattle where I loved having Coinstar around and recently thought how nice it would be if you offered Coinstar here in London also. To my happiness, I found out from your website that you did have some stores around London! I want to give you some feedback from my experiences this weekend actually trying to use your machines.

First, I like that your website allows users to search for local Coinstar locations, based on a starting post code. I found several machines nearby on the map you provide. However, the actual store details in many cases were actually 100s of miles WRONG from the actual store location. For example, I searched on postcode W5 and a Tesco - Station Drive returned as a nearby option. Your results said this was in Ludlow with a postcode of SY8 2PQ. In fact, your map location was accurate and only a few minutes' drive, but the store details you provide are off by hundreds of miles - maybe you're showing Tesco's corporate HQ?

With lots of coins in tow, I drove on Saturday to the nearby store, the Tesco near Perivale. I arrived and was all excited, but the store had your Coinstar machine unplugged and completely out of service. I asked about it, and they said that you already had been notified that the machine was out of service but they had no idea when you would actually fix it. (The score so far is Coinstar:1, Tee:0).

On Sunday, I was a bit smarter and wrote down several Coinstar locations. The next store I drove to - the ASDA in NW10 - had the Coinstar machine plugged in, but the screen had an error saying that the coin buckets were full and that you'd been notified to resolve the issue. I didn't even bother to ask for details. (The updated score now was Coinstar:2, Tee:0).

At this point, I was on a quest out of principle. It does strike me quite strange that you have a passionate customer in someone like me, and yet I had become fairly convinced that Coinstar was doing everything possible to thwart my attempts at redeeming my coins! But I had written down several locations and drove on to the third store - the Sainsbury's on Ealing Road in HA0. The machine was plugged in and appeared to be working! And it did. With my voucher ticket in hand for £148, I waited in line to redeem the voucher. Despite the messages saying to go to "any cashier to redeem the voucher", I was bounced between a few but eventually wound up at Customer Service - and with bills shortly in hand for £148. (I'm going to split points for this round, so updated score was Coinstar:3, Tee:1).

I wanted to share my experiences - very annoying and amusing all at the same time. Can you PLEASE do something so that your Coinstar machines work and are available for customers to use? If this were my first experience with Coinstar, I would never use you again. I'm certainly willing to give you a second chance, but if it's this painful all the time, giving coins to co-worker's kids with a 50/50 split suddenly seems like a better return on my time!

Final score? Coinstar:3, Tee:1. I'm eagerly awaiting the company's response to my email to them..