Roland Perry wrote:
They should be able to get "test" cards from all the major issuers
(who are international organisations so a single point of contact for
such an exercise), who have a vested interest in as wide as possible
acceptance.

When was the issue of cards centralised? Last I heard the standards
were agreed internationally but individual banks etc. remain responsible
for issuing the cards using any of a range of hardware (or agents with
different hardware) from different vendors.

And I doubt they'd get very far by asking for contactless cards,
linked to accounts with funds, to be sent to them for test
transactions.

Quite the reverse, I expect the issuers will be testing things like
this too, and it's just part of their [considerable] costs for the
contactless rollout. And in any event the funds successfully taken
from the cards will go straight back to the issuers, as will the
unsuccessful cards.

I take it by issuers you mean Visa, Mastercard and American Express. If
so, I am unclear how that gets TfL any further forward in dealing with
departures from their standards. Or different standards. (Eg what about
Interac? AIUI most Canadian banks etc used a different contactless
system in Interac Flash. Your comment about TfL's guidance auggests to
me you think TfL ought to do more. I am not clear what - bearing in
mind that not all cards issued in Canada are Interac.)

So I am unclear what you expect or propose that TfL do to provide
better guidance.

Under their noses is a crowd-sourced database of cards-which-work. I
find it hard to believe they aren't using that.

So if they want to know if a particular type of card works, they just
trawl through the 60 million card usages they've had in the last six
months and see if that card is represented within.

I don't see how that gives TfL information about cards which could not
be read.

In the meantime it seems to me TfL's guidance is the converse of the
way card issuers don't guarantee their contactless cards will be
accepted by every reader in every country.

TfL is hardly "any reader".

Indeed. So TfL is at more than average risk of reputational damage if
it gives blanket assurances to users that cards will work and it turns
out some don't; and more than average risk of complaints from issuers if
it suggests that (all) cards from some particular countries, Banks etc
won't work when some (or all) do.
--
Robin
reply to address is (meant to be) valid