London Banter - View Single Post

Someone Somewhere · April 13th 12, 07:20 AM posted to uk.transport.london

On 12/04/2012 12:05, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 10:52:45 on Thu, 12 Apr
2012, d remarked:
I'm sure an accountant somewhere was expecting to recycle "surrendered"
Oyster cards, all the literature makes it quite clear they don't belong
to the holder, only the money on them does.

No doubt, but if TfL was truly serious about retaining ownership then
they'd
require everyone to produce id and a valid address before buying one
so they
could be reclaimed at some point (though obviously if someone lives
abroad
that might be a teensy problem). Since they don't require I think it can
be infered that they don't actually care.

Whether they care or not (about getting them back), that doesn't change
the legal position wrt ownership.

Presumably they assert ownership as some way to increase the chance of
prosecution if you decide to hack "your" Oyster card?

Or if they discover dodgy behaviour going on they can invalidate and/or
confiscate cards (whilst paying back any pay as you go balance) without
you being able to accuse them of theft?