Washboard.co (Quarters for Laundry) shuts down | Hacker News Reader

Washboard.co (Quarters for Laundry) shuts down

washboard.co

9 pointsjefflinwood12 comments

Doesn't really mention what it was specifically that was against the terms of service for the different providers. I can venture a guess and say that you are providing people cash from a purchase on credit card (sort of like an ATM but, allowing people to use their credit cards instead of debit cards).

Most "coin-op" services I've seen that take credit cards issue tokens instead of real quarters. I guess that is why.

You used to be able to buy bags of coins from the US Mint at cost using a credit card. Some clever folk would continuously buy coins on their credit card then turn around and deposit them in their bank to immediately pay off the credit card bill. They did this to rack up airline miles or something like that. That is why you can't buy money at cost with a credit card.

In retrospect this might literally be money laundering.

We'd be happy to help at knoxpayments.com - plus your margin would go way up at $0.18 per payment - tommy@knoxpayments.com if anyone wants to reach out.

Edit: I realize that they don't want to do the work of integrating a new gateway. I'm not sure the headline "due to payment processor problems" holds up if simply switching processors was somehow off the table.

Sent you an email, but a bit of advice for you - in a space requiring trust, you should have an About Us page, and a Contact page!

Show who you are more!

I agree - being worked on now. We really didn't have a moment since launch to touch up the website until we brought on some summer interns. I 100% agree with you though.

I'm surprised there was a big demand for this service. Most (all?) laundromats, car washes, other "coin-op" services already have change machines. Many that I've used also take credit cards. Heck even the Coke machine in my office takes credit cards.

I have coin laundry in my apartment building. Once every month or two I go down to the closest laundromat with 2 twenties and walk back with forty dollars of quarters jangling around my pockets. I may be abusing the laundromat for their coin machine, but it works.

> On June 19th 2014 I decided I was just going to launch it and see what happened.

11 total days in business - that defines 'fail fast'.

FWIW, I didn't think it was ridiculous.

However, I'm a little surprised that switching payment processors would be ridiculous.

It wasn't ridiculous, we found a processor that was happy to work with us but we just decided to go ahead and work on some other stuff. Washboard was a ton of fun, no regrets at all!

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