I went to an MBTA public meeting a couple of months ago and voiced this concern about the new CharlieCard vending machines:
The credit card readers don’t have a clear indication of the correct placement of the magnetic strip in the slot, and they only give you three tries to pay before you have to start over. Since there are four possible ways to insert the card, this leads to frustrated customers.
The T representatives seemed genuinely surprised when I brought up the problem, and said that they would look into it.
Fast forward to today, and look what I found on the CharlieCard machine at the Charles/MGH station (I wonder if the Chase logo is product placement or trademark infringement):
