On Sep 8, 12:50*am, Roy Badami wrote:

As a one off, I agree. *Auto top-up, OTOH, avoids having to worry about
running out of credit. *Which can be a bit of a problem if you've just
boarded a bendy bus. *(Not happened to me, but people have been
prosecuted for inadvertently running out of credit on a bendy bus.)

Well, that's their defence at least...

Well, if they're going to have a policy of ignoring the penalty fares
system and simply prosecuting at first offence (which it appears to me
that from time to time they do) then running out of credit is rather risky.

All I was suggesting was that the defence of 'I unwittingly ran out of
credit' being presented is probably far more common than of it
actually happening.

(Observe people getting on a bendy bus, attempting to touch-in,
realising they've not got enough credit, shrugging their shoulders and
settling down into a seat. Or even just boarding and not making any
attempt to touch-in, but if inspected presenting their credit-less
Oyster card and claiming they thought they'd touched in. Or numerous
variants thereof. I've got on a bendy bus and realised on boarding
that I was out of credit, so just alighted at the next stop.)