In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 09:29:32 -0600,
wrote:

None of this helps us provincials who use perhaps a tenner a year on
PAYG.

Most "provincials", if I'm understanding correctly, enter London via a
mainline railway station, all of which are near or immediately next to
a Tube station, where a manual top-up could be carried out.

All right if they don't, as I sometimes do when arriving in London, get a
bus (45 or 63 to Blackfriars Road) and don't use the tube at all.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , (Andrew
Heenan) wrote:

wrote:
Auto top-up triggers whenever the balance falls below £5. Thus your
balance is always in the £5-£25 range, never below. The loophole I'm
suggesting is to add cash before each journey to keep it in the
£5-£10 range, but what you can't ever do with a card with auto
top-up enabled is spend the last £5. You can still have the card
refunded of course, but then you have no Oyster Card.
None of this helps us provincials who use perhaps a tenner a year
on PAYG.

That being the case, what on Earth are you doing even considering
auto top-up.
That's insane.

I think I was slightly confusing auto with online top-up which has similar
issues.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , (Andrew
Heenan) wrote:

And how you think an 'auto' system could conceivably function
*without* registration beats me!

Why does the system need to know more than which /card/ is being topped up?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 21:03:11 on Sun, 23
Nov 2008, David of Broadway remarked:
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.)

I got an Oyster card when they first came out, and gave them a USA
address (it was on a paper application form). Whether that "registered"
it or not, I don't know.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 19:28:06 on Sun, 23
Nov 2008, tim..... remarked:
he is saying that it is only possible to "initiate" your top up by
visiting a tube station and actually making a TUBE journey, something
which not everybody will want to do.

pedant Or a DLR journey /pedant

But what's to stop you touching straight back out, then getting the
ticket office to cancel out the pair of transactions?
--
Roland Perry

On 23 Nov, 21:07, wrote:
Why does the system need to know more than which /card/ is being topped up?

Because you need to be able to administer auto top-up, in particular
if a top-up fails* they email you to say your Oyster Card will be
blacklisted if you don't sort it out. Plus adding and removing cards
and so on, plus I'm not sure banking rules would allow you to have a
debit card on file for someone without having their personal details.

(* Credit is added to your Oyster card before they do the bank
transaction to verify you have the money)

U

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 19:28:06 on Sun, 23 Nov
2008, tim..... remarked:
he is saying that it is only possible to "initiate" your top up by
visiting a tube station and actually making a TUBE journey, something
which not everybody will want to do.

pedant Or a DLR journey /pedant

But what's to stop you touching straight back out, then getting the ticket
office to cancel out the pair of transactions?

How would that work? Would I just touch my Oyster twice on the same reader
then go to the ticket office and ask them to cancel a 'phantom' journey?

regards

Stephen

--
Roland Perry

On Nov 23, 6:41*pm, "Andrew Heenan" wrote:
"MIG" wrote ...

that when a refund is owed to you, you have to
make a LU journey. Auto top-up is a choice,
but having to make a journey to get your own
money back is rather cheeky.
(And having to register, but that's another story.).

It seems pointless to sign up for an "auto" system, then spend countles
brain cells searching for ways to undermine it.
If you don't want auto, fine - don't have it.
For those of us who find that "auto" means "I'm not bovvered", it's a
positive boon - leave us alone!

And how you think an 'auto' system could conceivably function *without*
registration beats me!

It's about as conceivable as it being impossible for refunds or auto
top-ups to be trigged by anything other than making a journey on LU.

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.

On Nov 23, 9:23*pm, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 19:28:06 on Sun, 23
Nov 2008, tim..... remarked:

he is saying that it is only possible to "initiate" your top up by
visiting a tube station and actually making a TUBE journey, something
which not everybody will want to do.

pedant Or a DLR journey /pedant



Actually not. When I was offered a £4 refund (see my reply to Mr
Thant) I was told that I had to nominate a station. I could fairly
easily reach a number of DLR stations, but not an LU station. But I
was told that it had to be an LU station.

(When I was also told that I had to register, I didn't bother, and it
should have been 40p anyway.)