Andreas Flaten just wanted to collect the money he was owed.
He quit a luxury auto repair shop in Peachtree City, Georgia, in November 2020, with a letter and two weeks’ notice. He said he had worked there for a year and the toxic conditions had worn him down. His final paycheck, for $915, never arrived. He says his boss promised to pay him in January and then accused him of causing damage to the shop. He asked the state Department of Labor for help, with little success.
At 8 pm on Friday, March 12, 2021, he and his girlfriend, Olivia Oxley, left their home in Fayetteville and found a huge pile in the driveway: around 91.500 pennies, covered in oil or grease. On top of the pile was an envelope with his pay stub and an insulting message. Flaten estimated they weighed close to 500 pounds. The weight flattened the tires on the wheelbarrow he used to move them.
He is cleaning them at night with dish soap, vinegar, and water. It took him about an hour and a half to wash just a few hundred. The shop’s owner, Miles Walker, said he didn’t remember whether he had left them and that Flaten “got paid”. Later, according to Fox News, Coinstar offered to help with the coins.
