• Snot Flickerman
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    26 days ago

    Not the same company, but I live in apartments with washer/dryers like this. Coin op entirely removed.

    You have to have a device that is bluetooth capable to use them.

    Anyway pretty sure someone in this apartment has figured out something similar because the machines keep magically becoming unpaid machines after they get serviced. After each service, they will be asking for money to be able to be used for like a day or so, but then soon enough, I’ll go back to the laundry room and all the machines will be free and not asking for money. Just ready to go, no device required.

    Originally, I thought it was the company disabling them due to like a data breach or something and was trying to find out if there was an undisclosed data leak and/or a class action lawsuit brewing. Since neither of those are the case, I’m pretty sure it’s a Notorious Do-Gooder.

    So, thanks, Notorious Do-Gooder, for all the free washes and drys.

    (Especially since this same idea crossed my mind over a year ago but I’ve just been too lazy to view the bluetooth data traffic myself)

        • @nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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          224 days ago

          I miss my free cable and Wi-Fi in my first Boston apartment. I didn’t discover it worked until 2 months into living there (just after 9/11 actually). It went month to month when the owners sold the place and we wouldn’t have ever left if it weren’t for the shitty icebox and terrible parking in that neighborhood.

    • @potpotato@lemmy.world
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      626 days ago

      Saw a video that showed using swizzle sticks jammed into the coin slots to release the lock and get free laundry.

      I had bike spokes laying around and tried it. It worked, but actually broke the coin slots. Management reconfig’d to other slots, which I then broke.

      Laundry was only 25 cents if you knew which slot to put a quart into.

      • Snot Flickerman
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        26 days ago

        Around 2007 or so I used to unplug Coinstar machines from the internet (plug was usually right in back) and then put in all my coins and try to redeem an online gift card. It used to be you could only get all of your cash back via online gift cards, because the machine took out a fee to give your money back in cash.

        When it couldn’t connect to the internet, it would apologize and refund me in cash, with no convenience fee (since I was clearly inconvenienced). Full amount returned.

      • @sudo@programming.dev
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        426 days ago

        You were supposed to use plastic coffee straws not a hard piece of metal. Turn a $1 bag of 100 straws into $25-$100 in laundry change depending on how much your reuse the straws.