solar penguin wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

On 19 Feb, 11:26, "solar penguin"
wrote:

I decided to give up and stick with proper tickets until the
technology gets more reliable. IMHO it's worth paying the little
bit extra for the reassurance.


I think the technology is pretty reliable - I know people who are
still using their original Oyster card that they got back in 2003,
having been using it on a near daily basis ever since.

I certainly ain't going to start paying £3 or £4 for a single
Underground journey, or pay £2 for a bus fare just for the sake of
'reassurance', because I don't think anyone really needs to worry
about that. If I did buy paper tickets I'd end up paying well over the
odds all the time, buying Day Travelcards for a few journeys around
town which I would have paid significantly less for using Oyster -
quite often I never reaching any daily cap anyway.

I live in South London, and most of my journeys involve trains, so I
have to get Day Travelcards anyway. I only ever needed to use Oyster
once or twice a year. (In fact I thought it was the lack of use that
caused the card to seize up!)


Well, Oyster PAYG is useful even if you're just nipping out on the bus
(or indeed tram) - you pay 90p rather than £2 for a single journey.
But certainly yes, if you're using mainline rail services then as a
basic rule of thumb you're normally better off with a Travelcard.



I was annoyed when my card broke, and yet more annoyed when it
happened again - it was a fuss going to get them replaced, especially
as this happened early on and not all the Tube ticket office staff
were that clued up as to the proceedure for replacements. However I
understand that things have improved very significantly in that
department as staff have become familiar with the system.


I'm nowhere near a tube ticket office, but woman in the newsagents was
certain that the broken card couldn't be replaced if it was my fault
that I'd broken it. I'd have to buy a new one. And there was no chance
of getting back the money stored on the old card, because if she
couldn't even read it in the first place, there was no way she could
know how much money there was.

Are you saying that she was wrong? Or that tube station staff have
better facilities for dealing with faulty cards?


She was indeed wrong. I am not completely au fait with all the
procedures, but basically if your Oyster card stops working then you
can the money back. However the newsagents are not able to deal with
issues such as this at all - though she really should have known
better than to say what she did.

If you had registered your card already then sorting out a replacement
can be done more easily - a Tube station ticket office will be able to
provide you with a replacement Oyster card there and then along with
reinstating the balance on it, or I understand that if you call the
Oyster helpdesk they would send a replacement one out to you, again
with the PAYG balance reinstated. I am not quite sure what happens
with regards to a deposit when a card stops working - i.e. whether
they would take a further £3 deposit out of your PAYG balance.

If your card was not registered then I think it still might be
possible for you to get a replacement card along with your money back
- try contacting the Oyster helpdesk. If they can help you then I
suppose you would need to send them the broken card.

Note than cards that are currently unregistered can be registered if
you take them to a Tube ticket office along and fill in a registration
form.

So in actual fact your money is currently still sat on the big Oyster
database waiting for you to use it again, so try getting in contact
with the Oyster helpdesk and they should be able to sort you out - the
number is 0845 330 9876 (open 8am until 10pm), or if you wish to dial
a London number you can use (020) 7227 7886.

(The whole issue of replacements for lost/stolen and broken Oyster
cards is one which I'm a little hazy on with regards to all the
details, however I do intend on getting my head round it soon and when
I do I'll start a new thread on this issue.)


But since I figured out that keeping my Oyster card in my back pocket
was a bad idea and stopped doing so I've had no problems at all. So
that's my basic bit of advice - by all means get and use an Oyster
card, just don't sit on it.

Maybe I'll think about it if PAYG ever gets inflicted on the stations
round here. But until then, I'll stick with what's most reliable, even
if it does mean paying a quid or two more each year.


As a south Londoner I would absolutely love Oyster PAYG to be
"inflicted" on all mainline stations in London, I find it incredibly
convenient. I think your worries about reliability are overblown - as
I say above, if your card does break (and one can attempt to avoid
this by not sitting on it!) then you can get your money back.

One thing I can say for sure is that if I had been using paper tickets
over the course of a year I would have paid a *very great deal more*
than just one or two quid a year, and I know that would be the case
for a great number of people. I can quite understand that given your
usage of public transport your situation is different - but for a huge
number of people using Oyster OAYG is a cheaper and easier alternative
to buying a Day Travelcard (though of course this definitely ain't the
case if you want to travel by train in south London).