In message , at 14:35:30 on Fri, 4 Dec
2015, Clive Page remarked:
On 04/12/2015 09:57, Piatkow wrote:
On Friday, December 4, 2015 at 9:51:15 AM UTC, eastender wrote:
Is it no longer possible to buy a single bus ticket? My son has left
his Oyster card somewhere and is coming into Euston tonight - does he
have to buy a one day card to use the bus?

He can use a contactless bank card to pay for a single fare.

I thought that when contactless bank cards were introduced for small
transactions in shops one of the safeguards was that the first time you
used one you would be required to enter your pin on the associated pin
pad, just so that if someone stole your card and you had not enabled it
in this way it could not be used to empty your account.

I dimly recall that too, but have never encountered it myself in the
field (I have several cards on the go).

But buses and tube gatelines don't have a pin-pad - so does this mean
(a) that you no longer have to enable them, so that all contactless
cards are instantly valuable to a thief who wants to travel around
London, or (b) you do have to use them somewhere else first such as in
a shop where a pin-pad is provided? I've searched the TfL website
without being able to find anything on this topic.

At least two of my cards have only *ever* been used as contactless on
TfL (I got them to play with), and they both worked fine first time.

Another card has never been used *contactless* other than on TfL. Again,
it worked first time.

(I'm an Oyster user but have a National Rail discount loaded on mine,
so use of contactless cards would cost more, but it would be nice to
know whether in an emergency I could use it or not).

--
Roland Perry