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Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry

washboard.co

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Re: Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry

#51

Post by HCIdivision17 »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #36
bunkat wrote: post #13

If somebody told you to mail them $13.50 and they will mail you back $10, you would think they were crazy. But in today's world this is a valid idea for a startup?

I love that the justification is that places won't make change. Three foolproof steps to successfully obtaining change from a convenience store (clerks hate him!): (a) make a purchase, (b) pay with a $20, (c) ask for a roll back instead of the $10 and the clerk will drop one out of the safe for you. When 30 seconds of your time exceeds $7 in value, implying you make $7 million per year, buy a washer. EDIT: Before you…

Personally, my going rate is about a quarter per roll, up to a dollar depending on which clothes are now my limiting factor and how badly I need them. (Two dimes buys a roll at my local grocer, which seems like a tolerable fee for their inconvenience.)

Now, if you want to be galled by the price, perhaps comparing it to the US Mint would help? I reckon the parent service is charging just about a third to half of what the mint charges for collector's grade coins [1] (depending on shipping). I think that's a fairly unflattering comparison. Even though I have some anxiety about asking a store clerk for something out of the ordinary, an extra roll of quarters for every four rolls is probably worth it.

[1]http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Category...

EDIT: Ambiguous pronoun.

Re: Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry

#53

Post by fleitz »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #42
chatmasta wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the off campus apartments at my college have laundry rooms with machines that only take quarters, but no change machines. Doing laundry, which is already a huge pain in the ass, was much worse for me because I also had to go to the bank and take out quarters.

> All the off campus apartments at my college have laundry rooms with machines that only take quarters, but no change machines. This is a bug. File appropriately. Laundry rooms are not operated without ongoing maintenance because communal equipment breaks all the time. Operating a quarter machine is part of said maintenance companies' repertoire.

No kidding, take quarters from washer, put back in change machine, extract cash, take cash to bank.

why wouldnt people have change machines?

Re: Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry

#54

Post by fleitz »

dwd wrote: post #44
yock wrote: post #38

I don't live in a big city, but here in Dayton Ohio I've never seen a laundromat without a change machine. Further, those change machines don't skim off the top. The worst you're out is a $3 charge for an out-of-network ATM, and even that can be avoided with a minimal amount of forethought. Am I missing something that makes this make sense?

I'm in Australia and the order form seems like it will have no issue with me ordering quarters (it even does an Australian postcode lookup), yet US coins are not legal tender here.

So... I can order lots of things that aren't legal tender over the Internet?

Why wouldn't they want to send you $20 in quarters for $27?

Re: Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry

#55

Post by dwd »

fleitz wrote: post #54
dwd wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Australia and the order form seems like it will have no issue with me ordering quarters (it even does an Australian postcode lookup), yet US coins are not legal tender here.

So... I can order lots of things that aren't legal tender over the Internet? Why wouldn't they want to send you $20 in quarters for $27?

Couple of reasons: Coins are generally worthless once you take them out of their country of origin. Laundromats in Australia mostly accept 1 or 2 dollar coins. It would cost around $40 in air freight.
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