Replacing an Oyster card
I’ve finally completed the process which I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy: replacing my Oyster card.
It was starting to not work first-time I touched it on the reader, and then one evening a few weeks ago it didn’t work at all. The nice person at White City station, at 10pm on Friday night when the ticket office was closed, looked at my card (normally hidden away in my wallet) and discovered a crack across the chip. I got that journey for free, because both ticket offices on my journey were unstaffed at that time of night.
So, the day after (a Saturday), I took my broken card to the ticket office, expecting them to give me a new one and transfer the £30 or so credit onto it. Nope, I had to fill out a 4-page form first and take it back to him. Once I did, he had to phone a contact centre to confirm all my details, the exact amount of credit on the card, my date of birth, and part of my online security information. I then had to tell him this personal information, not the easiest thing to do quietly when you’re holding up a queue waiting to buy tickets and surrounded by people coming and going in an open hall, the busy Wood Lane traffic on one side and Central Line trains on the other.
Once all this had been confirmed, I was able to take my new card, with transferred credit, and go on my way. Not the easiest thing to complete, but it was now done and everyone was happy.
Then, this morning, it didn’t work again. No crack in the card this time, but a lack of credit (26p to be precise). Hang on – that’s never happened to me before, because I have auto-topup activated: when my balance drops below £5, £40 gets added on automatically. Manually topping up £50 from a machine, I got on my way to work.
Online, I looked at my account. Auto-topup was still activated… for my old card, which was still displaying in my online account. My card, presumably mashed up somewhere in a landfill by now, was still showing as my default card in my online account, complete with a “credit” frozen from when it was replaced.
No problem – I’ll delete that card and add my new one. I would’ve expected Transport for London to do that automatically, but whatever.
Now… how do I delete the card from my account? I can’t? Oh, OK… I’ll just add my new card as well, then. 12-digit card number… check. Security question “Memorable date (dd/mm/yy)” – that’s probably my birthday. Submit. Error. “Security answer incorrect.” I go through a number of different significant dates, none of which work. Turns out, I should ignore the instructions and omit the slashes from the date entry – ddmmyy works perfectly.
So… about that auto-topup. Oh, it doesn’t transfer over automatically. I have to manually add it again for my new card. Which means I have to add at least another £5 onto it, even though I’ve just added £50 this morning. I also have to specify a station to “collect” it and activate the auto-topup (apparently I can’t just add the credit and activate it online). It will only be available for 8 days, and only from tomorrow. Problem: this is my last day of work, I don’t know when I’m back in London and – when I am – which station I’ll use. If it’s a weekday and I’m at Television Centre, it’ll be Farringdon; a weekend and it’ll be St Pancras. If I’m at Bush House, it’ll be Blackfriars. If I’m at Broadcasting House, it’ll be West Hampstead. Which station do I select?
In the end, I gave up. If I remember before my credit drops below £5 again, I’ll have to login again and setup auto-topup. I just hope I know which station I’ll be able to collect it from by then…
Suggested improvements:
- I know that, to stop people finding a lost Oyster card on the street and claiming it as their own, some security procedures need to be followed at the ticket office. However, this shouldn’t include shouting out personal information in a ticket hall with people queuing behind you (or filling out a 4-page form!)
- Remove all references to replaced/lost/stolen cards in the customer’s online account, add the new one, and transfer all facilities (including auto-topup) automatically.
- When setting up auto-topup for the first time, just allow people to activate it online without having to “collect” it from a Tube station. What’s the point? I mean, really, why can’t it just be activated online? Also, why must a top-up currently happen at the same time?
4 years later nothing changed HAHA, and you did forget to tell that you can not use the same debit card for the top up for the new card because this card is used to auto top up another card. But other then this a perfect example what happend to me twice. the only way to get the number removed from your account is to call them up!
My heart sank when I read your account which was pretty much what I was expecting to be involved. However, today I managed to swap my card by only providing my name as confirmation that I was who I said I was. I was a bit concerned that the guy had written down my security password on a scrap of paper (he didn’t actually ask me for this – which was just as well as I wouldn’t have remembered it anyway) and the procedure was quite low tech. He appeared to just phone a number, scribble down some details and then just verify my name.
Now I just have to hope that the direct debit will continue to work…