On Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:29:39 -0800 (PST), Mr Thant
wrote:

You only need to make one totally pointless underground trip to enable
auto-top-up in the first place. After that, the actual topping up can
happen anywhere you use your card, including buses.

....and you don't even need one totally pointless trip if you get a new
card from the Oyster web site with auto top-up already on it. Then
you could later get any deposit back on an old one. For anybody with
internet access, living away from the underground (as I do) is *not* a
reason to complain about Oyster. I understand the privacy concerns,
though, but don't see a way around that for a product like auto
top-up.

Richard.