UMass Amherst UCard Office

The UCard Office will be open normal business hours during Opening Week:

• Monday - Friday, 8:30am - 5:00pm
• Saturday & Sunday - CLOSED

As we contine to transistion to a post-COVID posture, the UCard Office is phasing out some temporary procedural changes that were implemented during COVID:

1. As of November 1, 2022, appointments will no longer be required to pick up or request cards.   The UCard appointment calendar will continue to allow customers to schedule appointments up through October 31, 2022, but not after that date.  On November 1st, or shortly thereafter, the UCard appointment calendar will be decommissioned.  And starting November 1st, all customers should come to the UCard Office during normal business hours (Monday-Friday, 08:30 am - 05:00 pm) for card pick ups and all other UCard-related issues or concerns.
2. Starting November 1, 2022, students replacing damaged UCards may once again qualify for a discounted UCard Replacement Fee of $15.00.  To qualify for this reduced price, a student must present the damaged UCard to the UCard staff before they request a replacement UCard.  The damaged card must be their most current card, and the UCard staff must be able to discern that it is the most recent card.  If the presented card is determined to be the most recent card,  a reduced fee of $15 will be billed to the student.  If the card is not the most recent UCard, or if it cannot be determined to be the most recent card, then the standard $30 will be billed to the student.  Students who bring in/present their damaged card after the replacement UCard has been printed, do not quatlify for the discount.
3. Starting November 1, 2022, active students requesting that we close their UCard debit accounts, will once again be charged a $10.00 closing fee.  Students who have left the University, or are otherwise inactive in SPIRE, can request that we close their UCard debit accounts without incurring this fee.  Please be aware that we confirm a student's status in SPIRE at the time of their account closure.  So customers looking to avoid the close account fee should ensure that their student record is already inactive in SPIRE prior to making a close account request.

If you received your UCard in the Mail, as a security precaution your UCard was temporarily marked as "Lost" prior to mailing it to your permanent address.  Before you can use your UCard, you will need to complete the following steps to reactivate it:

• Go to UCard web site:  umass.edu/ucard/
• Under Debit Account Management, click on GET Login
• Log in to GET using your UMass  email address and associated password
• Under Quick Links, click on I Found My Card
• Click on Report My Found Card
• Log out of GET by clicking on Logout in the top right corner of the screen

The UCard Office has worked with a number of students who have had problems with submitting photos taken with their iOS devices.  This is because a recent update in iOS changed the default file format in which photos are saved.  Rather than the traditional JPG format, they are now saved as HEIC, a high efficiency format that saves room on their iPhones, iPads, etc.  Unfortunately, this format is not currently compatible with our MyPhoto application. (One telltale symptom is that they select the photo to upload, but the application cycles back to asking them to select a photo.)

Rather than attempting to convert the image (which can sometimes be a difficult process and often fails to work anyway), the UCard Office has been instructing students to temporarily set their camera settings to save photos as JPGs, retake the photos, and submit the new photos.  The instructions for doing so are pretty straightforward.  On your iOS device:

• Go to Settings
• Go to Camera
• Go to Formats
• Change the checked format from “High Efficiency” to “Most Compatible”

Please contact the UCard Office if you are still having difficulties uploading your photos.

If you are using a mobile phone or tablet to access GET, GET will automatically send you to a mobile-friendly version of the web site. 

However if you are using an iOS or Android device, you should download and install the free iOS app or download and install the free Android app for even better performance and ease of use.

In addition to all the features found at the GET web site, the GET app also included the GetMyID functionality which allows a cardholder to display their UCard photo and id on their phone or other mobile device.

To learn more about GET, please see these short movies about How to Deposit Using GET and The GET Experience!