Business

TD Bank’s ‘Penny Arcades’ were probably stealing your kids’ change

TD Bank took its popular coin-counting Penny Arcades out of commission on Wednesday after a report found the kiosks were stiffing consumers — including many kids who took their piggy bank loot to its branches.

In one instance, TD Bank’s ubiquitous coin counters spit out a total that shortchanged a customer nearly 15 percent, according to the report.

And that’s before non-bank customers are hit with the standard 8 percent fee.

“It’s a company upgrade — from Maine to Florida,” a TD Bank teller in Midtown told a visitor Wednesday afternoon as the Penny Arcade machines were idled.

“Penny’s at a check up and down for the count at all of our locations. We’ll let you know when she’s feeling better,” read a sign taped over the machine.

Penny Arcade is a female cartoon character that appears on a video screen on the machine. It is the best-known kiddie attraction in retail banking.

But the report, aired by NBC’s “Today,” showed that one machine turned a $300 packet of coins into $256.90.

Tests at four other locations resulted in being shortchanged by less than a buck at three branches and by $3.73 at the fourth, the report said.

No test resulted in a bank error in the customer’s favor.

The bank told NBC that lint, dust and loading coins too slowly into its machines could result in a wrong count.

But when NBC tested the accuracy of Coinstar machines — which are in hundreds of supermarkets — it found each test resulted in a perfect count.

This is not the first time TD Bank has been alerted to possible problems with its Penny Arcades.

In 2012, New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press found counting errors at some Penny Arcades.

A Penny Arcade now out of commission.Brian Zak

But when it sought to bring in county regulators to test the machines, TD Bank denied them access on the grounds that a county office lacked jurisdiction over a federally chartered bank.

Then, just last month, the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia tested 17 coin-counting machines — including Coinstar, Penny Arcade and PNC Bank’s Change Depot.

Only Coinstar got it right, WPVI said. The station attributed the correctness of the Coinstar machines to the ability of local agencies to gain access to the supermarket-based machines and test them.

“More troubling,” the station added, “we learned in Pennsylvania, there is no state oversight on kiosks.”

In New York, the state Department of Agriculture & Markets’ Weights and Measures Division inspects coin-counting machines — except for those in banks, a spokesman for the agency said.

TD Bank, led by Chief Executive Bharat Masrani, didn’t return calls from The Post. But it assured “Today” it placed “a premium” on the integrity of its machines and tested them twice a day.

TD, which inherited its coin changers in its 2007 acquisition of Commerce Bank, has embraced Penny Arcades’ ability to project a warm-and-cuddly brand image.

“People collect loose change, so we offer them free coin counting and piggy banks,” its chief marketing officer told analysts in June 2008. “That is what makes TD Commerce Bank a love brand.”

TD Bank is a unit of Toronto-Dominion Bank, whose stock fell 20 cents on Wednesday, to $41.92.