Card system for washing machine?

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
1
Nothing to fuss about, but as I already contributed to a complaints thread today I thought I'd post one of my own, having just gotten pissed of again with a laundry card that stopped working at the wrong time.

Anybody else have to use such stupid cards for their laundry?

In my building both the washing machine and the dryer have card readers installed by Gamma Card Systems . Every apartment has a card its tenant(s) can use for laundry, the cards hold monetary credit which gets charged off from it when washing or drying. Sounds simple, right? To load money on the card? there's no machine accessible to tenants. Put it in an envelope with at least CHF 60 in banknotes, write your name and address on the envelope, throw it in some mailbox before the first Monday of a month, and wait a few days to get your card back. I moved in on the first Thursday of the month and got an empty card from the previous tenants, so I had to wait a month to get my card charged and be able to use the building's laundry facilities. To use the card? Stick it in the reader, hope it can read your card, set the machine up, wait while it thinks over the meaning of life and stuff until it is ready for you to press the little red button, wait another minute until it tells you to remove the card, and now the machine will start, if it did not time out and forget what you set it to do in the meanwhile. The reader grossly overcharged you just to make sure the machine won't ever run longer than your credit allows, so wait another few minutes for the reader to notice after the machine is finished, stick the card in again, it will refund the unused credit and make your card usable again. So if also using the dryer (which for big loads of small things I have to, because there's just not enough line to hang it all on, and half of it is already occupied), a load involves inserting your card four times at different parts of the process, and wasting probably 10 minutes in the process just waiting on the stupid reader. Every so often, the reader just won't accept my card, and I'd have to wait and retry, with its tiny LCD either showing some random number or just the friendly "Karte Ungültig" message for a while.

Perhaps my card is not in best state... I asked my building administration once and had to send them the card for it to be sent to Gamma to take care of it, and after a couple of days I got it back with a note that it was "cleaned and reprogrammed".

I thought that helped because the card worked for a while, but then it started misbehaving again. And now it seems to be completely dead - waiting and retrying a few times didn't help either. With wet laundry in the machine, no space to hang it, the usual seemingly helpful neighbours not at home, gotta improvise. On Monday I'll insist on getting my card replaced with a new one.

But really it seems in other places here they manage to do it with more sanity.

2
Can't help much with cards...ours takes 20 rappen coins. We spend all month hoarding them from our various purchases, and hoping we will have enough by the time it is washing day...we get 3 days in a row for washing, then ten days in between. It's nuts - we are a family of 5, the other apartments have maximum 2 people, and I know for a fact the students across the hall wash at their parents or friends places most of the time...

3

Why don't you ask them to get some of their days then? Maybe they wouldn't mind!

4
We specifically chose the apartment were we live so that we could have our own washer and dryer in our flat.

Are you carrying your card on your person when you aren't using it?

The reason I ask is that my wife is very damaging to some kinds of magnetic cards. She can't keep them for more than a few months. You should try and keep the card somewhere where it would be protected.

Good luck,

Brian.

5
That sounds like a life of dirty laundry to me, that would cetainly drive me mad.

Not sure what I can advise, good luck sorting it out.

6
You don't live in Zürich, do you? Getting any apartment here is difficult enough, and being choosier than you need doesn't make it easier.

While having my own would definitely be advantageous, I honestly have been fine with shared laundry facilities so far, and had worse arrangements before. I'm single and don't dress up too fancy, so that's about 3-4 loads a month on the big machines. We have 15 apartments in the building (mostly couples), one big 6kg washing machine and one dryer, that works out if you're willing to wait until it's free, and are considerate in taking your stuff off soon enough.

No. I have it in a box in the apartment, and I only take it in my pocket when I'm going to the laundry room.

I never had that problem with the cards I do keep in my wallet (just a few, and the fabric of the wallet isolates them from each other). The Gamma card is not magnetic though, it's got those chipcard contacts like cash, SIM and phone cards do. Anyway I don't carry it with me, and it has been problematic pretty much since I got it. It may be in bad state already from the previous tenants, but the system's probably just not built very reliably.

Thanks. 't is no big deal, just an annoying time for it again, with two busy weeks ahead and then traveling for a while.

With pretty much all buildings having laundry rooms here, I haven't seen many alternatives, but worth asking as it may be simpler in the short term - does anyone know of a reasonably useful laundromat place in Zurich? Preferably one that doesn't involve too much waiting?

7
I do not know anything that seems to cause as much stress as doing laundry in Switzerland.

Have you considered getting one of those mini machines? I don't have one as we use the 20c coins, but I was looking at them the other week and they might solve your card problems.

8
On a brighter note, I'll now (abusing the complaint thread?) add how helpful my landlord (as we call them) has been in resolving the immediate problem.

I called on Monday morning, but apparently the administration contact for my building has changed (I pay directly to the owners, not the administration, so I wouldn't know otherwise), so it was only in the afternoon that I reached someone.

I explained the problem, telling that it made trouble in the past and I had to wait for it for some while but it's not a good time now, asking if I could somewhere replace it soon this time. He said he'll check and call me back. He called me back in the late afternoon towards the evening offering to pass by and try with me. I wasn't home and said I could come the next day with my card, but he just said he'll pass by anyway and try all the spare cards he has to see which are working and how much credit is on them.

He then just dropped a good card in my mailbox, with enough credit loaded on it for about two months' worth of laundry, and said I can send him my bad card by mail and if they can read the card they'll sort out the credit balance later. The next morning I could do the first of my remaining loads of laundry (which I normally batch together).

So the system is stupid, but this time someone was helpful and friendly (if I'd have requested prompt care from my previous landlord in the same circumstances she might of course been just as helpful), little time was lost on this. This kind of service from a landlord, and a not a private one at that, makes me smile.

Now back to the cocoon of these busy times.

9
interestingly, my landlord is very nice as well. when i texted him saturday night at 11PM that the card reader has decided "sperrtag!" leaving me with 11 kg-s of wet clothes half of which got locked inside the washing machine (door could not be opened any more), he texted straight back he can come right away if i want it. (i didn't.) so he came the next day and fixed everything. not to mention he gave me the card with 50 CHF on it already in the beginning and he was just not allowing me to pay it. (a present, he said.)

so not everybody's a pain, or i am just a lucky one.

10
As there is a topic on washing machine cards, i have a question about that: should I pay the credit that is on my card, if yes, how should I do it? I am using it for about 2,5 months and it is about 70CHF, please advice. Thanks

And ggod luck with your card problem too

11
These Laundry Cards and Card Machines are hideous in my opinion and I am a Landlord.

One of our tenents vandalised the 50 cent coin machine in our laundry room and stole the monies from it.

This was becuase we had won the court case to evict him and time to leave was coming up.

We only have five apatrtments in the building; three of which are members of my family renting.

I suggested that we just charge 60 francs more per annum in the maintenance charge to cover everyone.

My mother behind my back went and had one of these card machines installed which cost 1700 CHF.

She doesn't know how to top up the cards so ends up taking 50 CHF from tenents when they want their cards topped up and gives them 150 CHF top up in error.

They end up topping their cards up once every other year as a result.

What a waste of money and stupid idea in a small apartment block where it should be give and take.

12
After 2 years in my apartment I still don't actually understand how the card system works for the washing machine and tumbler! Does anyone else have the Gamma card system and could give me a step-by-step of how to use it? I have read about some systems that you have to put the card back in afterwards to get the money difference back and I have also read about pushing the button. I don't do either of these things, but somehow manage to use the machine although maybe I'm losing money!

13
With card systems you don't usually put money in anywhere as the charge goes directly on your flat.

So what type of card system do you have exactly?

14
had a system like that once, and yes if you do not place the card on the little machine thing on the wall (in our case) it will not refund you unused money.

Catch your concierge or a nice neighbour and ask them to show you.

15
The system I knew worked like this: insert the card wait the card-reader displays your balance, let's say 15.70 wait the amount that will be subtracted is displayed (= anticipated maximum usage for a high-temperature long wash with pre-wash), let's say 3.00 wait the card-reader displays the difference, 12.70 remove your card some signal (e.g. a blinking P for programmable) indicates that the machine can now be used.

Once the washing cycle is complete, you can claim your change (remainder). insert your card wait the card-reader displays your balance, let's say 12.70 press R (for return, retour, remainder) wait the remaining sum from last time you washed is shown, say, 2.20 (the difference between the maximum sum and the reality of your less expensive cycle) wait the card-reader adds this together and depicts, in this example 14.90 (= all of your credit re-loaded on the card) remove the card

We concluded that the card-reader was a bird of little brain, as it seemed that omitting any step, especially the many times one had to wait, resulted in the balances on the machine being gobbled up.

Besided that, it was easy to forget to claim once's balance back after the last cycle. In some cases, this meant the credit was passed on to the next neighbour who washed. In other cases, that balance waited there very nicely until the next time the card-reader recognised one's individual card, but even then it was not clear whether it needed to be claimed, specifically.

16
In some buildings, one has to go the caretaker with cash, to get the card loaded with credit. Other complexes have slot-machines one can operate to load the laundry card oneself, paying with a credit-card or bank card.

17
We have this system but not Gamma. Credit is put onto the card from another apparatus in our apartment complex.

Yes with our system one does have to put the card in afterwards to get unused money back. Some wash programs cost more. So after you wash on a program that costs less then you have to get the " rest " money back on the card. Here is our system under Bicont 202.

Well they should have all the instructions how to use it next to the machine. Its a little ignorant of you if after 2 years you are asking here on this forum. Speak to your house caretaker.

http://elektron.ch/en/service-suppor...ayment-systems

Go to page 27 in the manual for this- Bicont 2