Originally Posted by
emcampbe
You were probably inserting the greencard the wrong way. Machine readable code (back bottom side of the card) has to be in the same way that it is on a passport. But card definitely has to be face up (IIRC, with the top of the card towards you, but its been a while, so I could be wrong).
Yes, there is always a manual entry button on the screen as well you can choose.
I arrived at JFK's T8 this morning, expecting to use GE for the second time. I was fully aware that I am to use my green card to log onto the machine and I consider myself fairly tech-savvy, yet I failed to use the (new?) GE kiosks. As I see it, the main issues are:
1. While the size of the glass window of the scanner matches the size of a passport, there were no instructions as to the placement of the green card.
2. It was not sufficiently clear that the machine-readable portion of the LPR card should be facing down.
3. The glass window for the scanner is slanted, which means you need to firmly hold the green card in place, or it will glide off.
In particular, the combination of points 1 and 3 gave the impression that this GE kiosk is not meant to handle LPR cards.
Despite trying numerous machines and numerous orientations of the card (some of which I now know, or think I know, had the card facing the wrong way), the machine did not acknowledge my LPR card. All along, there was a button for “Problem reading my document,” but the disbelief from failing the scan paralyzed me from trying this option. The terminal was thinly staffed and there was nobody around to ask for guidance. Instead, I had to join the line for manual inspection. Frustrating and disappointing.