CSC ServiceWorks laundry machine coin bypass (2023) | Hacker News Reader

CSC ServiceWorks laundry machine coin bypass (2023)

michael.orlitzky.com

71 pointsLuc61 comments

I've had this thought about payment cards for a long time now. Corporations are pulling a reverse Superman III on us and keeping our pennies and dollars on these gift cards and payment cards that can never quite be zeroed out. If you added up all the lost change from all of these cards over someone's life it could be a fairly non-trivial amount of money. Add this up over a whole economy of people and you have millions of dollars of change that you've siphoned out of people by making it too difficult to spend.

There should be a law mandating the ability to convert gift cards or payment cards back into cash, or to reverse the transaction onto a credit card.

At least in California, any gift cards under $10 are redeemable for cash by law. But thats not saying the merchant will make it easy to do so. I usually have to ask for a manager and wait for a bit.

And increasingly, the minimum gift card amount is going up. You used to be able to buy Switch eShop gift cards for $5, $10, $20, and up. Now the minimum amount you can buy is $20:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=eshop+gift+card

Very frustrating for me, given that I still use these regularly for all my e-shop purchases, and can sometimes come up a single dollar short of what's necessary to complete the transaction.

Sony still lets you go down to $10 for PSN cards, but I'm skeptical that they'll keep it around much longer.

I worked at a job that had a cafeteria where you have to put money on a debit card, then pay with the card. It's a penny stealing operation for sure since a lot of food items are charged by weight so they are odd numbers. I worked at that location for about a year and on my very last day, my balance hit $0.00 by almost pure luck. I have never been more satisfied.

In California, at least, it's quite strict. If it's not used for a while and the balance is over $10 it goes through escheatment and ends up with the state. But if it's not expiring you still have to honour the card. Then get the money back from the government.

If it's under $10 it's redeemable for cash.

> In California, at least, it's quite strict.

> But if it's not expiring you still have to honour the card.

This is an odd combination of sentences. In California a gift card can't expire.

I was under the impression that there was a timer. Only gift cards after the 90s are expiration free or something. But looking it up that was amended in 2008: https://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/legal_guides/s_11.shtml

Ready to cry a little bit? "47% of American adults have unused gift cards, and the total value of these unspent funds in the U.S. is around $23 billion."

source: https://capitaloneshopping.com/research/gift-card-statistics...

There are some other eye-opening stats on there. How about "The global gift card market […] is expected to reach $3.09 trillion by 2030"?

Oh wow. And here I thought it was bad when someone stole my "dining dollars" card back in college.

Are these cards actually paid in advance? Or is much of their bulk effectively debt that would need to be repaid with a pretty low probability? See various coupons, mail-in rebates, points that you can only redeem in a particular store, etc. They look like a great deal, and are cheap to issue because only some of them are going to be redeemed.

While it's not explicitly stated, the stats indicate this is gift cards that have been paid in advance.

That means "Get $20 back when you spend $100" and "Get a $20 gift card when you spend $100" wouldn't be included. Not sure about "here's $20 to spend on your next visit"—I suspect that's really the same as the above, financially, just presented differently, in that there's not $20 sitting in 200,000 individual accounts waiting to be spent.

“Like regular money but more fun!”: <https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/08/like-regular-money-but-more...>

(Warning: Copy and paste the link; do not click.)

> Corporations are pulling a reverse Superman III on us and keeping our pennies and dollars on these gift cards and payment cards that can never quite be zeroed out.

Use the low-balance card to pay for part of a larger purchase.

Back in my days in the coin-op business, we wrote code that watched the length of that coin input pulse.

Too short or too long - it got rejected. It eliminated a lot of the abuse cases with coins on strings, people kicking the coin acceptors to move the microswitch, etc.

If you're going to open up the panel, think bigger than one round of laundry. That is doing a lot of work every time, that apart the spite factor isn't going to be worth your time. Rather, you can install a reed switch (or these days perhaps something like an ESP32) between the appropriate wires, and tape it to the back of the panel. Then put the whole thing back together, and you can use the machines for free any time by swiping a magnet over the appropriate place.

Also posted a year ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37026831

Some discussion exploiting a security bug 2 months ago (20 points, 9 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40402343 (6 points, 5 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40392915

edit: thanks ziml77

Not the same thing. This post is about how to break into the machines and short wires together.

I was looking at an outdoor coin-up machine that warned messing with it was a federal crime that could cost a $4000 or so fine and 14 years in jail. Seems excessive to the point where I woulsn’t want to risk it.

I can also put a sticker on myself that says messing with me is a $4000 fine and 14 years in jail. Better not risk it.

I seem to recall that their app also pushed lottery tickets.

Recent semi-related post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40402343

Find a laundromat nearby that will wash and fold your clothes. It's actually not a lot more expensive than what the machines charge and that's not accounting for malfunctions, unobtainable refunds, too-small-to-use balances left over on payment cards, your time waiting around while the machines run, detergent, fabric softeners, ruined clothes because you didn't realize that the previous user washed a load of greasy shop towels in the machine, etc.

Drop off a bag of laundry in the morning, pick up clean folded clothes in the evening. You're dealing with local owners most likely, or at least humans not some app or website.

>Find a laundromat nearby that will wash and fold your clothes. It's actually not a lot more expensive than what the machines charge

Where is this? I admittedly don't use such services but I find it hard to believe that a full service laundromat is anywhere close to a coin laundromat, unless you're in an economy where labor is dirt cheap.

I used a laundromat drop-off wash&fold service a decade or so ago in Cambridge, Mass. (while slammed with marathon late hours on-site, and couldn't get home for a few hours overlapping laundromat being open). Cambridge is a VHCOLA, and the service was kinda expensive.

(I used it for shirts and trousers, and just bought a ton of undergarments, so no stranger would have to fold those.)

Though, I don't know whether that place is still doing drop-off; a lot of laundromats went out of business during Covid. So something about the economics didn't work out, though it might've been real estate rather than the labor of the guy who was there to keep an eye on the coin-op machines anyway.

It is everywhere. Look for a Lavendaria or a standalone, laundromat. without attached dry cleaners.

Laundromats that hire an attendant, want to keep the attendant busy. "wash and fold" is how they do it.

for a family of 4 with towels and such, this would cost a fortune. a single person, it is a bargain. $25 to $30 a week.

in years past when i used to travel and be on customer sites for weeks at a time, i would get my laundry done before i went home. pick up the clean clothes on the way to the airport. eliminated one task when i got home.

Yeah they are everywhere. Some even have drive-thru drop-off/pickup or delivery.

They charge by dry weight of the laundry. I know people with families who still find it a good value for the time savings. Hang your towels and use them again, they don't really need to be washed that often. Also make sure they aren't soaking wet when you take them to be weighed.

This times a 1000. Single greatest thing I have ever done. Although find one that isn't attached to a dry cleaners or it gets expensive. (They randomly decided t-shirts needed to be dry cleaned and only wash-folded my underwear and socks).

They typically charge by weight and if you're doing laundry for a family of four, it will get very expensive very quickly.

Then what happens when the landlord goes to collect the money and sees the box is empty?

They will hopefully stop the contract with the company... or waste a good amount of time trying to discuss with them. With a bit of luck, they'll use the same communication channel as the end users, be unable to contact them, and realize how unethical the company is.

Everybody payed by app/card!

The landlord doesn't. CSC does. And what are they going to do?

CSC will be at a loss at that location.

The landlord will believe that washing machines are not profitable (usually they are placed on a revenue-share basis) for anybody, and see they are frequently damaged.

Result: no more washing machines.

> CSC will be at a loss at that location.

Boo hoo.

> Result: no more washing machines

That assumes the leases don't mention that laundry is provided. If the landlord takes the laundry amenity away and residents need to go to a laundromat, now not only is the landlord making no money, they're probably going to lose lots of leases as people move to places that have laundry on site.

This is biting your nose to spite your face.

Keep the laundry contract going for 12 months, update the leases. Budget a $50/month concession per unit if the tenant makes a fuss during renewal; raise the rent $100/month at the next year. For bonus points, figure out how to convert the laundry room into a rental unit that always smells like soap and comes close enough to the habitability standards otherwise.

If you think $50 is going to be enough to get residents to stay after you remove laundry facilities, you're about to have a lot of empty units. Laundry is something people feel very acutely because they deal with it multiple times each week, usually. Take it away, and it's your fault.

It's very hard to sell an apartment without some access to laundry, so you'd probably get a discount on rent in those locations if they did just remove them.

Result: cheap camera in the laundry room

I agree, in principle, which the spirit of this article and find it fascinating from a technical perspective. That being said...

> What are they going to do, sue you over $2?

Nope! They'll just let your local government do that for them and go back to their evil mustache twirling.

Now for extra bonus points, wire in a ESP32 to flip the switch remotely, so you don't have to open the service panel every time (and perhaps help out the neighbors).

A guide on how to get evicted?

We had these washers in the corporate housing that Mozilla used to use for interns. We estimated that the company made a thousand dollars each summer purely from fees, lost cards, malfunctions, and dark patterns (which amounted to outright theft) _just from interns at Mozilla_. And as a tenant, you have zero recourse. And of course the machines were almost always malfunctioning.

Quite frankly, I'd rather risk getting evicted than get fucked up the ass by a company that's literally out to scam me. If they can force me to give them money (because it's my only option to do laundry) they didn't earn, I'll resist that. Easy answer, next question.

I went to a college that used CSC for their laundry equipment except... the college instead just charged a paltry ~$50/semester laundry fee and it was just unlimited use of the equipment. Everything was programmed to 'free', no cards, nothing.

Part of this is also "greedy landlord setting pricing" on the equipment (as they can do so with CSC).

But how much did the college have to pay CSC to get that arrangement?

How much did the students pay in tuition adjustment to the college ?

I actually don't know how much that would cost. My university does the same thing, and I'm thankful for it, because having to pay to do our laundry is hellishly inconvenient.

I'm currently living at an extended stay hotel for an internship, and I've had to exchange nearly $60 for quarters to pay for my laundry. My latest set of loads cost me $14 to complete, at $2 per load, and I've had to do this four full loads already. Thankfully it appears that CSC isn't our vendor, but it would be so much easier if I didn't have to walk to the bank to get cash to exchange for rolls of quarters.

CSC is also _terrible_ at servicing speed for their machines. I know that Speed Queen machines are made in the US. Our washers were breaking down at an unusual rate last year. Despite this, the parts for fixing a machine have been unavailable for months at a time, as if they have to wait for them to come in from another country. I distinctly remember having 3 washers down for nearly 2 months, and all of them had the same "this machine is broken, waiting for parts" sign on them from the same repair visit. Maybe the parts are there and CSC is just cheaping out on labor. I wouldn't put it past them.

> Thankfully it appears that CSC isn't our vendor, but it would be so much easier if I didn't have to walk to the bank to get cash to exchange for rolls of quarters.

If you're already at a bank, you can get rolls of quarters from the bank, FWIW.

Most of the time when I'm doing laundry, it's after the bank has closed, so I walk to the drive-up ATM and get a $20 from the machine and exchange it at the front desk.

No more than $20/student/semester.

Probably $1.85/wash

Less than that, the college is paying for water and electricity. The contract is for the machines and maintenance only

> Get inside the service panel somehow;

If you do this in my CSC laundry room, I will hunt you down. :)

We have enough CSC problems, without someone going in and hotwiring the already fragile IoT.

That breaks it more, and also spoils what little pressure we can apply on CSC (because a vandal hotwiring is obviously not their fault).

> replaced all of the prepaid card machines with app/coin-op machines. This left most residents with prepaid cards that still have funds on them.

Same here. We're very unhappy with the CSC IoT. Additionally, the IoT was somehow integrated badly with the coin box, such that the system now very frequently eats quarters and refuses to work. (Rather than fail to at least the coin boxes working reliably, like they have for decades.)

(We're also still waiting, months later, to be reimbursed for the balances on the payment cards that we mailed them.)

HNer personal relevance: having at best 50/50 chance of any weekly laundry chore going smoothly is one of the smaller of the injustices that ramen startups (the kind that can afford only to occupy a low-end apartment building) have to put up with. Maybe the world would be better if more of us weren't so insulated by upper-middle income, from immediate externalities of what we build.

Eh, just get inside and ruin the things until CSC fires your landlord, and then they can finally just buy some regular machines for tenants to use.

If you're going to make interacting with your product so horrible, to the extent that a reasonable customer feels like they are being defrauded, don't be surprised when the customer takes the issue into their own hands, especially if you offer zero recourse for the issues you create for your obligate customers.

>Eh, just get inside and ruin the things until CSC fires your landlord, and then they can finally just buy some regular machines for tenants to use.

Cool, what about everyone else's laundry which can't be done in the meantime thanks to your little revolution?

I think your phrase "obligate customers" is doing a lot of rationalization for what amounts to emotionally driven destruction. "I'm unhappy! I'm entitled to something! Gimme gimme gimme". Is all I hear.

I understand, and am sympathetic, but maybe that's a precedent you don't want to set...

If person X takes vigilante justice into their own hands, can they complain if neighbors (who now can't do their laundry because of person X) take vigilante justice into their own hands?

In general, vigilante justice can never be allowed. But it must, nevertheless, sometimes happen. Some revolutions began as one person’s inability to cope, and thus society improves.

The distinction that resolves the conflict is that of personal life versus business. If you or your apartment is attacked, that is personal. If run a shitty business with shitty business practices that frustrate your desired captive-market customers so much they end up tampering with your machines to route around you, that's just business.

I most often hear "it's just business" in movies/TV, said by a character who is shooting someone in the head. A lot of business quickly reduces to personal.

It's only really "just business" when you have dynamics like finance bros making a game out of competing with each other.

The rest of us operate in a world of different rules and social expectations, and get caught in the crossfire of a game we were never playing.

Sure, but how does the crossfire of business bros vs business bros differ from the crossfire of business bros vs captive-customers? You seem to be condemning the frustrated captive-customers that have reached their breaking point, when your ire should really be directed at the business bros for creating the unnecessarily stressed situation. Fewer frustrated captive-customers would just mean the business bros dial up the stress to the new breaking point.

>CSC ServiceWorks steals small amounts of money from large amounts of people. They provide laundry machines to apartment buildings and condominiums (where the residents have already paid for the rent, water, and electricity) and then charge exorbitant fees to use them.

Then don't live there? It's not like the fact that a given building uses such machines is a secret. Moreover the sense of entitlement is is bizarre. The fact that you pay for "rent, water, and electricity" has no bearing on whether you're entitled to free laundry or not. Does the OP also think you're entitled to free food at a hotel because you already paid for the room? There are legitimate grievances that the OP could have focused on (eg. them discontinuing payment cards with money on them), but they're drowned out by childish complaints that the author decided to make.

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