In the past three weeks, the GoCard machines at The Tombs have stopped working, and the restaurant says it is not able to process payment with GoCards at this time.
But Director of GoCard Services Roman Fahrmann told a different story.
He wrote in an e-mail that the GoCard Services Office sent out a technician to investigate the problem. The technician found that “one terminal was able to communicate and the other was not,” but that both terminals were in working condition.
Fahrmann said the GoCard Services offices originally thought Tombs had a machine problem, but tested it and found out the problem was with Tombs’s phone line. Fahrmann was under the impression that Tombs was planning to contact its phone company.
Tombs Manager Blake Moses said that the GoCard Services office told him they planned to call an outside company to get it fixed.
“We called the GoCard office about it, and they said they’re aware of the problem, but they don’t know what’s going on,” Moses said. According to Moses, their GoCard machine has been malfunctioning sporadically since the beginning of the school year. The terminals kept showing there was a “bad connection” when cards were swiped.
Moses estimated that approximately 10 percent of Tombs’s customers pay with GoCards. He said Tombs employees currently tell order-out customers that Tombs is not accepting GoCards, but if a student can only pay with a GoCard, they will process the order at a later time.
“It’s really difficult for the bookkeeper … We’re not getting paid, really, but I understand a lot of them don’t have another method of payment,” Moses said.
Fahrmann said in the past two months, he has received about six calls from merchants complaining about malfunctioning GoCard machines.
“I can’t really say there’s a big problem out there,” Fahrmann said.
Booeymonger Owner Ryan Samuel said he talked to GoCard Services about terminal problems nearly a month ago and received a new machine. He said the new machine is better.
However, Booeymonger still experiences problems with the GoCard terminal “most of the time,” according to Booeymonger’s manager Ajith Wellage. He said some cards are harder to read.
Moses said that the manager of Wisemiller’s told him the deli also had problems with its GoCard terminal. The manager of Wisemiller’s was not available for comment.
Additional reporting by Will Sommer.
