My first experience with a vandalized and burgled machine.

[WillisNYC]

I went to my best service station stop where my Coke and snack machines share space with a Pepsi machine today.  To my dismay the bill validators had been bashed in on all three machines.  The bills were missing from the machines too of course.  My mechanic said it should cost me about $200 for the new validator in my machine if nothing else was messed up.  It didn't appear so, but I have to wait until tomorrow to find out.  Coke will fix their machine at no cost this time.  Very dismaying since things have been going very well lately.  I picked up 14 new locations in the last two weeks.  7 of those are now placed with one scheduled and 6 waiting for the previous vendors to move their machines.    Too bad my good luck streak had to be ruined by this burglary.    I did talk the owner of the station into cutting his commission in half until I recover my loss here.  I should have that covered in two months since this station is an excellent warm weather performer. 

[gundog]

That is a real drag....always seems like something to take away time or money.  Sounds like you are picking up some other spots..... maybe they will be good ones.  How are you getting those new spots- are you just out visiting locations in person?

[West Coast Vend LLC]

Sorry to hear about the break in's. I can't understand why people have to steal money from a vending machine. Most of the time there isn't enough to make it worth it.  The damage that is caused is more expensive than the money they took in most cases.  I had it happen to two crane machines on New Years eve and I changed all the locks and put stickers on them that say, Money is removed every day.  You can buy the stickers from any of the big full-line vending parts companies.

Gary

[mxer518]

When I hear things like this it reminds me of when I learned my hard lessons early on in the business. For any machines that are outside in areas where actions like this are likely to happen I always beef up the security on the machines, put the stickers on the machines, and sometimes put up some security cams around the machines. Of course you can never prevent things like this from happening but you can help reduce the loss in the future, I would suggest getting the security plates for the bill validators.

[mission vending]

Look at the bright side........ You can now say your rookie year and honeymoon period in the vending business has come to an end and now you are an experienced veteran of the cola wars.  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Sorry to hear about it, it's just an unfortunate cost of doing business with outdoor locations.

[WillisNYC]

Yes I am considering various security measures since I now have 10 service stations, am about to put on 6 more and probably 22 more the next month.  The stickers sound like a good idea and I need to look into the security cover for the validator.  I have security flanges on most of the locks already.  Also looking into cameras but I think they will be too expensive.  All will be outside service stations and I certainly don't want  to make replacing validators a 'regular thing'.

  To answer Gundog, yes I have been simply going into any promising lookng service station in my area and asking why they don't have soda machines.  Alternatively, why do you have so many broke or empty machines at your service station.  Once I get to talk to the decision maker, the sales have been pretty easy.  One guy has 30 stations where the current vendor has not contacted him to hand over commissions in the last three months.  I got 2 of those stations immediately, 6 in  another week and the other 22 if I simply do what I say I am going to do.  4 other stations did not have machines currently and I offered to put them there.  2 of those guys had other empty stations and I picked up 2 more that way.  While filling a machine this week a man drove up and asked 'Are those your machines?'  He owned a mechanic's garage and wanted a machine too!  Last month I got no placements, this month, as many as I can handle.  Go figure....I call it March Madness!