I'm living abroad now but came back to London for a few weeks for a holiday and used my old Oyster to travel around. It still had auto top up on it from before which I had neglected to cancel, and had topped up 40 pounds after a normal day out. Which I did not want it to do, but I thought oh well, I should have cancelled it before, too late now. And I did go to the website and request the auto top to be stopped afterwards, but I didn't bother with getting the money back as I'd imagine it would be a big faff and take ages, and I was flying out in a few days, and I could let my friend use it up instead etc. The cancelling of the auto top up had to be 'activated' by tapping in at a tube station (why??) which I didn't manage to do, so another 'black mark' against me.
But then I got an e-mail from TFL saying the auto top up had failed! So I thought well, that's worked out then.
A few days later, I'm not in the UK anymore and they've sent me another e-mail saying as I'd failed to pay them the 40 pounds they had now cancelled my card, which still had 5 pounds on it, and that I wouldn't get my 5 pounds back if I didn't pay them 40 pounds. And not only that, if I didn't pay them the 40 pounds, they were going to 'take further action'!
What further action could they take? I didn't go into negative with my card, why do I still have to pay them 40 pounds especially as they've cancelled it? They are also very happy to send out numerous e-mails, but bizarrely unable to accept e-mails back themselves.