MSE News: Got a London Oyster card you don't use? Get your share of £124m back

catwoman73

Be aware that some special edition oyster cards can be sold on eBay, so check this out before sending it back for a refund.

I have a London 2012 one, which is worth £10-15. I'm hanging onto it because I do go to London once or twice a year.

betty.london

mileslondoner wrote: »

I also share the view that TfL makes it extremely difficult and close to impossible to get a refund on your old oyster cards.

My experience was:

1) I approached the member of staff in the ticket hall but he told me that he is not ticket sales trained so cannot help me to get my deposit back.
2) I returned in the evening and a staff in the ticket office told me simply to call the number at the back of the card or to go to Kings Cross or Liverpool Street as they can process refunds there.
3) I tried a different station and the lady in the ticket office explained that I can only get a refund if I bring my passport/driving licence and a copy of my tenancy agreement. I explained that I do not have a tenancy agreement and the advice was to call oyster helpline again.
4) I called the helpline and after a lot of voice recognition problems I got to talk to the gentleman who said that the easiest and quickest way to get my deposit back is to go back to the station.
5) I gave up for some time but then had another oyster to give back as my sister left it with me. So again, I was asked if it was registered to which I replied I did not know and the staff made me feel like I was a fraudster or a pick pocket trying to steal a 5 pound deposit. In the end I was told that I could not get back the deposit but I can get back whatever has been left on pay as you go but the refund can only be processed to the debit card that had been used to top up.

I think the staff in general do not want/like to deal with oyster refunds and not because they are unhelpful or want to improve TfL's cash flow but because they have an easy option of saying - go to a ticket machine if you want to top up or call oyster helpline for anything else.

Before leaving London, I went to a cashier to get my money on a few unused cards I had in my possessions, cards that are registered in my name... They also told me I had to provide proof of ID and proof of address in order to get refunds, plus fill out a form. All in all, a process that I could not go through as I was leaving on the same day.

They really make it difficult for customers to try to get their money back.

agarnett

I warned literally years ago under an MSE alter-ego that TFL/Capita were sitting on tens of millions - and that was just an educated guess.

Basically what we have here is an illegal slush fund. It is money that is supposed to be held in trust for customers but has been reattributed for use by crooks who are very reluctant to give it back. You have to fill in forms and get everything spot on to get at your own money. Never mind the word "crooks" for that's old hat, but notice that word reattributed. I borrowed it from somewhere else. It is actually a crooked misnomer in itself. A closer word would be redistributed (as in redistributed wealth).

Google reattribution alongside the words "with profits" to find out where and why, and then if you are old enough to know who Norwich Union, Commercial Union and AXA Equity and Life were, then check your pockets carefully. It basically means sequestered or nicked. And what does that mean?

Well if you have lived as long as me you might realise that time and money are very much the same thing like Einstein's mass and energy.

If you keep other people's money long enough it basically loses its monetary worth to them, but whomever holds it gets all the benefit in the meantime.

If you work for one of these organisations and believe in the culture that sequesters the wealth of the common man whom you euphemistically might call your customers, then you should be ashamed. You won't be of course, because the rotten culture is ingrained unto the grave.

mirrorsaw

em6 wrote: »

My card corrupted and I lost £20. The people at Oyster could not have cared less. They had absolutely no intention of refunding me, however much I complained. They kept telling me it was my fault for using up the money. Which, as I had only loaded it the day before, was a bit rich. They are con artists and they will do everything they can to avoid giving you your money. They'll call you a liar, they'll call you deluded, they'll call you stupid. They will take your card from you and give you no receipt or paperwork or proof it ever existed. The man at the counter just threw it in the bin and shrugged his shoulders. I have never been so royally conned as I was by TfL when my card went wrong. Please don't tell people that getting a refund from them will be an easy process. It won't.

I'm going to side with Oyster on this and assume it was your fault. If it was possible for the Oyster system to 'corrupt' cards (don't even know what you mean by this, it's a centralised computer network, money isn't actually on the card) then it would be happening all the time, and not just to you.

Perhaps you forgot to touch out at the end of your journey

Pincher

agarnett wrote: »

I warned literally years ago under an MSE alter-ego that TFL/Capita were sitting on tens of millions - and that was just an educated guess.

I got an Octopus card, which is the equivalent of Oyster in Hong Kong. You get a discount on the Airport Express train (like Heathrow Express from Paddington), and they said you can get a refund at the airport when you leave Hong Kong. I started out with about HK$100, but used that up quick on the first day, because you can pay for breakfast with it, and you can get to Shenzhen on the Octopus too. So, on the third recharge, I put the maximum on, something like HK$900. And then none of the restaurants and services I was using was equipped to take it. So I ended up with about HK$700 when I got to the airport. THEN they told me that they will only refund cards with up to HK$500. If the total is more, then I will have to use it down to below HK$500, otherwise no refund!! The good news is, the card is valid forever, so I can come back to Hong Kong and use it any time. Arrrghhh!!!

daaave

I live outside London and ended up with 4-5 oyster cards kicking about my house, each with god-knows-how-much credit on them.

So last time I went down to London, I took them all with me, along with my driving license & disabled railcard & waited in the TFL queue at euston.

The lady gave me a form to fill in & sign, and I walked away with one oyster card (now activated for the 30% off-peak disabled discount) and £27-odd credit on it. Took about 10 mins.

Well worth doing if you're in a similar situation.

edrandall

On returning from holiday, we'd forgotten to bring our oyster cards with us but I was able to quickly and easily buy 4 more cards for the family from a machine at the Piccadilly line station at Heathrow so we all got home via tube and bus for quite a lot less than if we'd bought paper zone tickets or a travelcard (or a minicab!).
I'm going to simply claim a refund on all 4 tomorrow. No registration or form was necessary to buy, so it strikes me as odd that I can't just swipe the same credit card, touch each oyster to confirm and then drop it into a slot on a similar machine to get the refund. Why the additional bureacracy?

jenssen

I use my Oyster for pay as you go only. Excluding periodic travel passes, is there any point in keeping my Oyster if I can now get the same TFL pay as you go deal by using my contactless debit card?

t0rt0ise

jenssen wrote: »

I use my Oyster for pay as you go only. Excluding periodic travel passes, is there any point in keeping my Oyster if I can now get the same TFL pay as you go deal by using my contactless debit card?

No, It just seems safer to me to keep an oyster card in a separate pocket. I don't want to have to either keep my debit card in a less safe place or have to open my wallet every time to use it. I like to keep my money cards away in a safe place when on the tube.

Tw12

Hi Guys,

There is a .co.uk website called orefund where you can claim your unused PAYG credit and Oyster card deposit all online without any of these confusion or ID .

All you have to do is complete a formon the website and they will refund your money back to you into your bank account (if you live in the UK) or your PayPal account (if you don’t live in the UK) within 24 hours.

Well worth doing... all online as well!
:beer::rotfl::j