On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:56:59 -0800 (PST),
MIG wrote:
On Nov 23, 8:10*pm, Mr Thant
wrote:
On 23 Nov, 20:03, David of Broadway
wrote:

An unregistered card can't be issued a refund? *Then how are non-UK
residents expected to obtain refunds? *(When I tried to register my
Oyster card to a USA address in 2005, I was told that only UK addresses
were valid.)

No, MIG is complaining that auto top-up needs registration, and that
refunds require you to make a tube journey to pick them up (as does
enabling auto top-up). I don't think refunds require registration.

It may not be correct, but it's what was implied when I had a query.
I emailed with my card number with a question about what on Earth had
happened to my balance, and eventually got a reply saying that I was
owed £4. (I actually thought that the discrepancy was 40p.)

In order to pick up the refund, I was told that I had to both nominate
a station and register my details. I wasn't offered another means of
getting the refund, but something complicated may be possible if one
is overseas. In the end I didn't bother and they are 40p up.

You can't get a refund unless you use the tube within a certain number
of days (8 weeks?). So if you're abroad/in another bit of the country
and not planning to visit London for a few months then TfL will eat the
refund and there's nothing you can do.

It's also impossible to get your oyster refunded if you live abroad and
have topped it up with both cash and a credit card (at least you can get
it refunded, they'll send a GBP cheque to your US address in a month or
two but if you've used two different methods to top up the card they
cannot refund it - the implication was that the card could have been
refunded if only credit card or only cash had been used to buy and top
it up). My collegue who got caught by this just sold his card to someone
else for the value on the card plus the deposit. (With the right group
of people who make various journeys every day it's also possible to
arrange so that the value on the card will go negative by a good
proportion of the deposit if you don't want to bother with trying to get
that back from TfL)

Tim.


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and there was light.

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