cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/13133455
It used to be that you could insert a coin into a washing machine and it would simply work. Now some Danish and German apartment owners have decided it’s a good idea to remove the cash payment option. So you have to visit a website and top-up your laundry account before using the laundry room.
Is this wise?
Points of failure with traditional coin-fed systems:
- your coin gets stuck
- you don’t have the right denomination of coins
Points of failure with this KYC cashless gung-ho digital transformation system:
- your internet service goes down
- the internet service of the laundry room goes down
- the website is incompatible with your browser
- the website forces 3rd party JavaScript that’s either broken or you don’t trust it
- you cannot (or will not) solve CAPTCHA
- the website rejects your IP address because it is a shared IP
- the payment processor rejects your IP address because it is a shared IP
- the bank rejects your IP address because it is a shared IP
- the payment processor is Paypal and you do not want to share sensitive financial data with 600 corporations
- the accepted payment forms do not match your payment cards
- the accepted payment form matches, but your card is still rejected anyway for one of many undisclosed reasons:
- your card is on the same network but foreign cards are refused
- the payment processor does not like your IP address
- the copy of your ID doc on file with the bank expired, and the bank’s way of telling you is to freeze your card
- it’s one of these new online-only bank cards with no CVV code printed on the card so to get your CVV code you must install their app from Google’s Playstore (this expands into 20+ more points of failure)
- your bank account is literally below the top-up minimum because you only have cash and your cashless bank does not accept cash deposits; so you cannot do laundry until you get a paycheck or arrange for an electronic transfer from a foreign bank at the cost of an extortionate exchange rate
- you cannot open a bank account because Danish banks refuse to serve people who do not yet have their CPR number (a process that takes at least 1 month).
- you are unbanked because of one of 24 reasons that Bruce Schneier does not know about
- the internet works when you start the wash load, but fails sometime during the program so you cannot use the dryers; in which case you suddenly have to run out and buy hanging mechanisms as your wet clothes sit.
- (edit) the app of your bank and/or the laundry service demands a newer phone OS than you have, and your phone maker quit offering updates.
In my case, I was hit with point of failure number 11. Payment processors never tell you why your payment is refused. They either give a uselessly vague error, or the web UI just refuses to move forward with no error, or the error is an intentional lie. Because e.g. if your payment is refused you are presumed to be a criminal unworthy of being informed.
Danish apartment management’s response to complaints: We are not obligated to serve you. Read the terms of your lease. There is a coin-operated laundromat 1km away.
Question: are we all being forced into this shitty cashless situation in order to ease the hunt for criminals?
The account was in good standing worked daily, before and after the laundry attempt. When an online merchant blocks me my bank often tells me “it’s not coming from us; your account is fine on our side”.
I was never given the answer. How can you solve a problem when merchants will not tell you what the problem is? They think they are dealing with fraud so they are afraid to inform (who they regard as) a criminal. Getting information out of a merchant about a failed transaction is a social engineering effort on par with what hackers do.
It’s legal to reject foreign cards
One thing I’ve noticed is that some merchants refuse cards on the basis of being foreign issued. It may have been what my issue was with the laundromat, but I can only guess. Rejecting a card on the basis of being foreign violates the merchant agreement with visa and mastercard, but it is not law and merchants often violate the merchant agreement because Visa and MC do not enforce the contract. I have in fact reported instances of merchants violating the merchant agreement and the credit card networks ignore these complaints.You can, and it would be a good exercise for you to see first hand how banks treat consumers when they tell you GTFO for asking for a small amount of coins. You will see for yourself that banks are unworthy of the power you give them.
Fuck that shop then. They don’t want your business and have failed to earn it. It’s a worthy exercise just to know where you stand.
You’re living a boxed in life just the way they want you to.
how to live a conventional boxed-in life
You’re not traveling internationally and using a foreign cards, you’re not using Tor, you’re not blocking untrustworthy JavaScript, you solve every CAPTCHA, you’re happy to subscribe to mobile phone service and to share that phone number willy nilly with anyone who asks, you’re willing to transact with Google to install whatever closed-source apps banks and merchants want you to, you’re giving merchants and banks a permanent email address (as opposed to using an @spamgourmet.com address), you’re diligently keeping track of your ID expiry and automatically running the new card over to the bank as soon as you get a new ID card to make sure in advance the bank always has a current copy, you never move without telling the bank your new address which would cause the bank’s annual postal check on your address to fail, you’re not American (which triggers extra poor treatment by banks), you never tried to pay a recipient who the bank politically objects to (Wikileaks), you do not buy cryptocurrency, and you must be using Paypal exactly the way Paypal expects (which means no purchases in certain categories and using the account just often enough to not look suspicious but not so often that you trigger one of their countless fraud false flags). If you’ve failed any of that criteria, you’ve merely been strangely lucky.So the one variable that is easily in your own control and you manage to fuck it up. You got issues. But certainly whatever puts you in a situation where an ATM is far from where you need one, you can fairly blame that on the banks who are the proactive cause for ATM sparsity.