Frank Gilberti thought that his traffic ticket was "non-cents." He noticed that the Bloomfield, New Jersey, municipal court accepts cash to pay the fine, so he decided to pay with real cents: $56 in pennies!
That's when he got into more trouble:
"I went to the bank and got $56 worth of rolled pennies and went down to the court house and they refused to take it. They had told me to bring cash. I was under the assumption this was cash."
Non-cents? Not really. Pennies are legal tender. In fact, at the courthouse WCBS-TV found a sign saying cash is accepted. That's why the Nutley resident said he fought back, calling the court and convincing workers there to take his pennies.
But the 22-year-old said there was a condition -- that he write his driver's license number on each roll. "I simply asked them if I would have to do just this if I were handing in $56 bill. Would I have to write my driver's license number on each bill? They had no response," Gilberti said.
And even more shocking he said: "Then I found out there was a warrant out for my arrest."
I accepted it. It was all there, and we weren't short a dime that night. It went to the bank in a change order later that week.
I'm glad this guy stood up, but sad that he let the man get him down. Money is money, if you're going to hand out pennies as change, then you should accept them as payment, no matter the amount. As for the DL number on each roll... how many other fine-payers are gonna pay in pennies? If an issue comes up, you're going to remember the guy, and then you can issue a warrant or whatever.
The system has been failing since its conception. This is just another example that the system suffers an original flaw.