Customer Paid Money, But No Value Was Added To Their Laundry Card

Customer Paid Money, But No Value Was Added To Their Laundry Card

This article discusses what to check for if you have a customer who is claiming that a VAC took their money, but did not add the value to their laundry card.

Confirming the Customers Complaint:

If you suspect a VAC took money, but did not add that value to the customers laundry card, the first place you want to check is the VAC Logs:


You should always be able to find proof of what happened by looking into your VAC logs.

Filtering your VAC logs:
If there are a lot of VAC records to go through, you can setup the filters so that you are only looking at:
  - the date that this failed transaction happened on
  - only transactions from the VAC## that the customer was using when it happened (if you are not positive as to which one they used, leave this as All)
  - only user account usage transaction records




Use the transaction date stamps to narrow in on transactions that happened around the time when the customer used this VAC.
Observe the Result column as it may give indication as to whether or not a problem was detected during the Transaction:




Confirming if an error occurred:
If you find a transaction record that resulted in an error message, and the transaction matches the information that was given to you by the customer about their failed transaction, you can confirm with the customer that you can see the VAC had an issue adding the value to their card, and move on to resolving the issue for this customer.

If you are unable to find any transaction records, that resulted in an error around the time that this customer used the VAC, chances are there was no issue with your VAC and your customer may be mistaken, or they may have been attempting to use the VAC incorrectly.
Note: Checking your VAC logs is only useful IF your VAC is online.
Offline VACs will still work with cash transactions, and will still dispense cards to customers; but while a VAC is offline, you will NOT be able to see any of the transactions that took place while the VAC was offline.

Resolving the Customers Complaint:

Once you've located the failed transaction, depending on the error message you find under the Result column, you will want to do the following:

Result: No Card (Place card back to get owed value):

You will mostly see this error during card reloads (reloading existing laundry cards, not new card purchase).
This error can occur if the customer removes their card from the VAC card holder, after paying for their purchase (using cash or credit/debit), but before the VAC has actually added the value onto their card.

To correct this, bring the laundry card back to the same VAC the customer used to make their purchase, and place the laundry card into the VAC's card holder to check it's balance. 
In most cases, before the VAC displays the card balance, it will automatically correct the issue by adding the owed value onto the laundry card.
You will know the VAC resolved this issue because it will create an "Owed Value" transaction record in the VAC logs:

Result: Card Write Error:

You will see this error if the VAC attempted to dispense a card, but either no card was dispensed, or a card was dispensed with a $0 balance on it.

No Card was actually Dispensed 
 - If no card was dispensed by the VAC, you can simply dispense a new card for this customer with the value they attempted to load onto a laundry card.
Check the failed transaction's Amount column to confirm how much money was deposited by the customer:


Card was Dispensed, but came out with a $0 balance
 - If a card was dispensed by the VAC with $0 on it, bring this card back to the same VAC it was dispensed from, and place it into the VAC's card holder.
In most cases, the VAC will recognize that it was unable to add the value to this laundry card number when it was initially dispensed. Once it see's that card number again, it will automatically correct the issue by creating an "Owed Value" transaction record in your VAC logs:


In rare cases, placing the card back into the VAC card holder will not trigger the system to add the owed value onto the card.
If the VAC that was originally used won't add the owed value, take the card to another VAC (if multiple VACs are in your location), and see if the other VAC will add the owed value.
If no VACs add the owed value automatically, you can manually add the owed value using either the Laundro Portal's Load Card Value option, or by using a Management card, with the full access PIN, at a VAC equipped with a touch screen. see: Changing the balance of a Laundry Card at the VAC

Troubleshooting/Understanding Common Credit/Debit/EBT Issues:

You will only see this type of result during a credit, debit, or EBT card purchase transactions.
You can always tell a transaction record is a payment processing record by it's blue background:


Any payment processing record, that does NOT result in an "Approved" message, means the credit/debit card transaction was not processed by the payment processor.
If payment is not processed by the payment processor, it means that the transaction never went through, so there is no value for the VAC to add to this customers laundry card.
The reason why a transaction was not processed will be in the result message, but some payment processor results will simply be an error code number.
To find out specifics about any payment processing transaction error you see, you will want to speak to your payment processor about the specific error in question.

Troubleshooting/Understanding Common Purchase Issues:

Every time a VAC takes in any bills, and stores them in the cash box, you will always find a transaction record showing that cash was inserted.
This section will show you what to expect from a successful transaction, so you can recognize a failed transaction when you see one.

Successful New Card Cash Transactions:

During a transaction where the VAC took in cash, and the value was added to the card successfully, this is what you should expect to see in your VAC logs.

Most VACs are configured so that when purchasing a new card, as soon as the first bill is inserted, the VAC will automatically dispense a new card, with the value loaded onto the card (minus any new card fee).

In the example below, the new card fee is $1:

Note: if the customer in the above transaction inserted a $1 bill, since the new card fee is $1, the New Balance field would show $0

Some VACs are configured so that customers can continue inserting bills into the VAC, before a new card is actually dispensed.
In this configuration, customers need to press the "Finished - Get Card" button, before a new laundry card is dispensed by the VAC.

For every bill that is inserted in this configuration, you will see one "Cash Deposit Towards New Card" transaction record, for each bill that was inserted during the new card purchase.
When the "Finished - Get Card" button is pressed, the VAC will dispense a card, read it's card number, and then create a "Cash - New Card" transaction record that will include:
  - the "Card Number" field populated with the laundry card number that was dispensed
  - the "Amount" field will show $0
  - the "New Balance" field will show the total amount of all the "Cash Deposit Towards New Card" transactions for this purchase
Note: This total amount will include any bonuses received during the transaction, minus any new card fee.
(New Balance = all Cash Deposit Towards New Card transactions + any received reload bonus - any new card fee)

In the example below, this VAC is NOT charging anything for new cards (new card fee set to $0), and it is configured to reward a $1 reload bonus whenever customers make a $20 purchase:

Note: you will notice that for all "Cash Deposits Towards New Card" transaction records, the Card Number field always says "N/A".
This is because since the VAC hasn't dispensed a card yet, it does not know what laundry card # to associated with the inserted cash transaction records. This is expected; you will only see the card # on the transaction record that is created after the customer presses the "Finished - Get Card" button

Successful New Card Credit/Debit Card Transactions:

During a transaction where the VAC's PINpad terminal processes a credit/debit/EBT card successfully, and the value was added to the card successfully, this is what you should expect to see in your VAC logs.



The transaction record with the blue background is the actual payment processing transaction record.
This will show the last 4 digits of the credit/debit/EBT card account that was used to make this purchase transaction. 
If the transaction was approved by the payment processor, the results column will say APPROVED.
Note: you can click on the blue Tran ID number to view a copy of the receipt for this credit/debit/EBT card transaction

If the payment processing transaction was approved, you will see a 2nd transition record above it that shows a record of the VAC adding this balance onto the user's laundry card.
If the VAC is able to add the value to the laundry card successfully, the results column will say OK.
You can compare the Tran ID of the 2 records to confirm they are related to the same transaction; they should be identical.

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