UMass Amherst UCard Office

The UCard Office has identified an issue for a small number of international students who are having difficulties logging in to GET either via the GET App or using the GET Web Portal. They successfully log in to campus single sign on, but then get the error:

"Login successful but we were unable to access your campus card account."

We have reported the issue to campus Information Technology, and they are working on a solution.  Once a fix is in place, we will update this announcement. Until then, students in this situation can:

• Contact the UCard Office at ucard@admin.umass.edu, to request balance or transaction history information.  This request must be sent from the student's UMass email account.
• Make a credit card deposit to the student's UCard debit account using the Make a Deposit link on the UCard Office homepage.

Thank you for your patience as we work to resolve this issue.

The UCard Office is looking to hire 1-2, preferably work-study, students for Fall 2023.  We are only looking for students who can work mid-days on Tuesdays, Thursdays and/or Fridays.
 
Employment Duties Include:

• Providing excellent customer service to students, parents, and employees in person and over the phone
• Taking photos and approving online photo submissions
• Printing and distributing UCards and cards
• Performing some cashiering duties
• Filing and other general office tasks

 
Employment Requirements:

• Must be an active student 
• Must have a customer-friendly demeanor and work well with others
• Must be punctual and have excellent attendance
• Must be able to work with minimal supervision
• Must be able to pay attention to detail
• Must be able to handle personal/confidential information with discretion
• Must have basic computer skills

 
Employment Preferences:

• Preference given to students who have work study
• Preference given to students able and willing to continue at the UCard Office for several semesters
• Preference given to students with cash handling experience
• Preference given to Freshmen and Sophomores

 
To apply, please fill out an application at https://www.umass.edu/ucard/content/ucard-office-student-employment and email resumes to ucard@admin.umass.edu.

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.

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!