Sending this on behalf of someone else. Her Oystercard, suddenly, stopped
working at about 11 pm last night in spite of having a season ticket
"loaded" on there till 2007. She was let through by the staff but very
weird. Wouldn't work on the bus either.

This morning she went to the Londis to ask and they said "the magnet has
broken" and she needs to go the LUL station to get it replaced. What's that
about and has that happened to any of you before?

It's never broken before - and original card from when they first came out.
She also has loaded between £20 and £30 of prepay on top of it for when she
goes out of zone, although has no record of the amount, no receipts or
anything.

I assume something's happened to the card and as she still has the paper
receipt for the yearly season ticket, she'll get that replaced. But what
about the excess on top of the card? Will they honour it if she has no
receipts? Will they somehow be able to read it? How did it happen?

She doesn't carry her card next to her mobile or anything like that....

Just using the number on the card they can look at all the details on
there, so it shouldn't be a problem.

In message 45,
Tristán White writes
This morning she went to the Londis to ask and they said "the magnet
has broken"

ROFL! I know what they meant but that's a lovely way of putting it,
isn't it?! :-))
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

On Wed, 15 Nov 2006 18:31:18 -0600,
Tristán White
wrote in 45:
Sending this on behalf of someone else. Her Oystercard, suddenly, stopped
working at about 11 pm last night

I assume something's happened to the card and as she still has the paper
receipt for the yearly season ticket, she'll get that replaced. But what
about the excess on top of the card? Will they honour it if she has no
receipts? Will they somehow be able to read it? How did it happen?

Mine failed a while back, although more slowly than your friend's.
When I filled out the form for a replacement it asked for an estimate of
the pre-pay balance. Since I knew it had £17.60 on it the last time it
shiwed a balance on the bus I put down £18. The chap in the ticket office
then credited the new card with £18 as well as the £3 deposit. I presume
that somewhere down the line there will be a reconciliation of data and
the balance adjusted for any discrepancy, but I really have no way of
knowing if that's happened or not.

She doesn't carry her card next to her mobile or anything like that....

I'd imagine physical damage to be more likely, e.g. being bent.
Mine lived in my shirt pocket and so had no physical abuse, and the way it
failed gradually suggests an intermittent failure such as a cold-soldered
joint, or one slowly corroding away.

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. ] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

Dr Ivan D. Reid wrote:
On Wed, 15 Nov 2006 18:31:18 -0600,
Tristán White
wrote in 45:
Sending this on behalf of someone else. Her Oystercard, suddenly, stopped
working at about 11 pm last night

I assume something's happened to the card and as she still has the paper
receipt for the yearly season ticket, she'll get that replaced. But what
about the excess on top of the card? Will they honour it if she has no
receipts? Will they somehow be able to read it? How did it happen?

Mine failed a while back, although more slowly than your friend's.
When I filled out the form for a replacement it asked for an estimate of
the pre-pay balance. Since I knew it had £17.60 on it the last time it
shiwed a balance on the bus I put down £18. The chap in the ticket office
then credited the new card with £18 as well as the £3 deposit. I presume
that somewhere down the line there will be a reconciliation of data and
the balance adjusted for any discrepancy, but I really have no way of
knowing if that's happened or not.

Same thing with mine. It didn't stop working, just worked erratically;
sometimes it would let me out of the gates or beep on the bus, and
sometimes it wouldn't. I went through the same process as Ivan to get
a replacement. I was quite surprised that I was just asked to estimate
the amount of prepay on there and believed; I'd have thought they'd
have been able to look it up in some way.

Patrick

Tristán White wrote:

Sending this on behalf of someone else. Her Oystercard, suddenly, stopped
working at about 11 pm last night in spite of having a season ticket
"loaded" on there till 2007. She was let through by the staff but very
weird. Wouldn't work on the bus either.

This morning she went to the Londis to ask and they said "the magnet has
broken" and she needs to go the LUL station to get it replaced. What's that
about and has that happened to any of you before?

It's never broken before - and original card from when they first came out.
She also has loaded between £20 and £30 of prepay on top of it for when she
goes out of zone, although has no record of the amount, no receipts or
anything.

I assume something's happened to the card and as she still has the paper
receipt for the yearly season ticket, she'll get that replaced. But what
about the excess on top of the card? Will they honour it if she has no
receipts? Will they somehow be able to read it? How did it happen?

She doesn't carry her card next to her mobile or anything like that....

Just because its never broken before doesn't mean it never will!

If she goes to a ticket office, they can call oyster helpdesk and
confirm how much prepay is on her ticket, and provide a duplicate.

To help you understand why the cards fail from time to time, they're
not magnetic. Basically within the card is a chip, much the same as
that on your bank cards, just its internal. There is a coiled wire
around the inside of the card, which acts as an aerial, so that the
Oyster readers can interpret the card. If the card becomes damaged,
even by bending (for example, in your back pocket when you sit down)
you can damage the chip or the aeiral, rendering the card useless.

It doesn't take more than a few minutes to replace the ticket, 10 at
the most, so i recommend she goes tomorrow and gets it done, as she
shouldn't be travelling without it.

" wrote in
ps.com:

Just because its never broken before doesn't mean it never will!

If she goes to a ticket office, they can call oyster helpdesk and
confirm how much prepay is on her ticket, and provide a duplicate.
SNIP

I've heard from someone that the old tickets (and this is one of the first
batch) won't let you do that. I'll let her know.

Thanks for the tip though.