In message , at 11:37:31 on Fri, 3 Jan 2014,
Mizter T remarked:
However, they have either withdrawn the restriction on using foreign or
prepay cards (and many tourists will have foreign prepay cards) or
they've just stopped mentioning it.

How many (if any) prepaid cards have contactless enabled? I suspect
they won't have it, as contactless transactions are all about being
super-quick, 'touch and go', without time for online authorisation.
Enabling contactless would be a risk for the issuer - existing prepaid
cards have a zero floor limit (i.e. automatic online authorisation),
for example.

Yes, I know what the problem for the merchants is (very similar to the
old Electron/Solo issue), but a prepaid card is the sort of thing that
minors, tourists[1] and the uncreditworthy [all three of whom buy tube
tickets] are very likely to have.

Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

Have they met the deadline set when first introduced [Dec 2012]:

"From the end of 2013, contactless payment cards will be accepted on the
Tube, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground and trams."

I'm not looking forward to that because it would seem it obsoletes my
"Onepulse Barclay/Oyster" - the system charges neither rather than one
or both, apparently. Will they be sending me an automatic refund for the
stored amount?

"the system charges neither rather than one or both, apparently" -
really? I'd expect it to continue acting as an Oyster card when
presented to an Oyster validator

The December 2012 press release says:

"If an Oyster card and a contactless bankcard are presented to a reader
on a bus together (for instance, in a wallet), the readers will normally
reject them both, as it can't be sure which card was intended to be
used."

(though I'd also expect the product to be discontinued soon

That's a great shame as it reduces the plastic-card-bloat in my wallet.

Also a slap in the face for early adopters.

- when-ish does your card expire, if you don't mind me asking?).

Later this year.

[1] There's clearly a demand for "Europe compatible" prepay cards in the
USA, as they are on sale at airports there.
--
Roland Perry

On 03/01/2014 12:21, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 11:37:31 on Fri, 3 Jan 2014,
Mizter T remarked:
However, they have either withdrawn the restriction on using foreign or
prepay cards (and many tourists will have foreign prepay cards) or
they've just stopped mentioning it.

How many (if any) prepaid cards have contactless enabled? I suspect
they won't have it, as contactless transactions are all about being
super-quick, 'touch and go', without time for online authorisation.
Enabling contactless would be a risk for the issuer - existing prepaid
cards have a zero floor limit (i.e. automatic online authorisation),
for example.

Yes, I know what the problem for the merchants is (very similar to the
old Electron/Solo issue), but a prepaid card is the sort of thing that
minors, tourists[1] and the uncreditworthy [all three of whom buy tube
tickets] are very likely to have.

You ignored my point, which is that prepaid cards probably won't have
the contactless facility anyway.


Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

Have they met the deadline set when first introduced [Dec 2012]:

"From the end of 2013, contactless payment cards will be accepted on the
Tube, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground and trams."

I'm not looking forward to that because it would seem it obsoletes my
"Onepulse Barclay/Oyster" - the system charges neither rather than one
or both, apparently. Will they be sending me an automatic refund for the
stored amount?

"the system charges neither rather than one or both, apparently" -
really? I'd expect it to continue acting as an Oyster card when
presented to an Oyster validator

The December 2012 press release says:

"If an Oyster card and a contactless bankcard are presented to a reader
on a bus together (for instance, in a wallet), the readers will normally
reject them both, as it can't be sure which card was intended to be used."

That's talking about (say) a wallet with both an Oyster card and a
contactless bank card in it - not the OnePulse card, which was
specifically designed so that the EMV contactless and Oyster MiFare
elements didn't interfere with each other.

I've read nothing whatsoever about anyone having problems with a
OnePulse card in the past year that contactless bank card payments have
been available on the buses.


(though I'd also expect the product to be discontinued soon

That's a great shame as it reduces the plastic-card-bloat in my wallet.

Not if your contactless credit/debit card can be used in place of an
Oyster card it won't.


Also a slap in the face for early adopters.

Early adopters should be used to slaps in the face!


- when-ish does your card expire, if you don't mind me asking?).

Later this year.

I'd assume it won't be reissued as a OnePulse card. (I'd also guess that
getting the remaining credit off it won't be as easy as you'd like...
unless the Oyster part of the card just carries on working after the
credit card part expires?)

In message , at 12:31:25 on Fri, 3 Jan 2014,
Mizter T remarked:

However, they have either withdrawn the restriction on using foreign or
prepay cards (and many tourists will have foreign prepay cards) or
they've just stopped mentioning it.

How many (if any) prepaid cards have contactless enabled? I suspect
they won't have it, as contactless transactions are all about being
super-quick, 'touch and go', without time for online authorisation.
Enabling contactless would be a risk for the issuer - existing prepaid
cards have a zero floor limit (i.e. automatic online authorisation),
for example.

Yes, I know what the problem for the merchants is (very similar to the
old Electron/Solo issue), but a prepaid card is the sort of thing that
minors, tourists[1] and the uncreditworthy [all three of whom buy tube
tickets] are very likely to have.

You ignored my point, which is that prepaid cards probably won't have
the contactless facility anyway.

Until we do a market survey, we won't know.

If the answer is "no they don't" then a big bit of TfL's contactless
strategy goes up in smoke.

"If an Oyster card and a contactless bankcard are presented to a reader
on a bus together (for instance, in a wallet), the readers will normally
reject them both, as it can't be sure which card was intended to be used."

That's talking about (say) a wallet with both an Oyster card and a
contactless bank card in it - not the OnePulse card, which was
specifically designed so that the EMV contactless and Oyster MiFare
elements didn't interfere with each other.

How do they manage to make the two functions *in the same card* not
interfere, when the two functions *in adjacent cards" do?

Is there some sort of communication between the two halves, inside the
card, to decide "who is the boss" in various situations?

I've read nothing whatsoever about anyone having problems with a
OnePulse card in the past year that contactless bank card payments have
been available on the buses.

Nor have I, but I don't expect that OnePulse and bus users overlap very
much.

(though I'd also expect the product to be discontinued soon

That's a great shame as it reduces the plastic-card-bloat in my wallet.

Not if your contactless credit/debit card can be used in place of an
Oyster card it won't.

The OnePulse may well *be* my contactless credit card.

Also a slap in the face for early adopters.

Early adopters should be used to slaps in the face!

Just saying...

- when-ish does your card expire, if you don't mind me asking?).

Later this year.

I'd assume it won't be reissued as a OnePulse card. (I'd also guess
that getting the remaining credit off it won't be as easy as you'd
like... unless the Oyster part of the card just carries on working
after the credit card part expires?)

Dunno. Last time it was renewed it took a typical half-hour phone call
to the 'help' line to resolve transferring the credit. I didn't think to
try using the card as an "only an Oyster". But this time perhaps I will.

Doesn't solve the card-bloat issue though.
--
Roland Perry

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(tim......) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(tim......) wrote:

If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting
at windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified"
individuals who don't go through the self service passport check (at
no risk and sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened"
the average person is of such technology

Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

but not withing the timetable that Boris wants to close the ticket
offices IMHO

It's still some time till his 2015 deadline in terms of electronic payment
development timescales.

but nowhere near enought time for everybody to get used to using them

especially foreigners

tim



--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(tim......) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(tim......) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(tim......) wrote:

If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying
for tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are
tilting at windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified"
individuals who don't go through the self service passport check (at
no risk and sometimes considerable time cost) to see how
"frightened" the average person is of such technology

Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

but not withing the timetable that Boris wants to close the ticket
offices IMHO

It's still some time till his 2015 deadline in terms of electronic
payment development timescales.

but nowhere near enought time for everybody to get used to using them

especially foreigners

I wouldn't be so sure.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

"Phil" wrote

But you see the same everywhere, how few use pay-at-pump, although
self-service checkouts do seem to have gained acceptance.

Today's news gave a new reason for this

http://www.theguardian.com/business/...-petrol-glitch

NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland customers have become the victims of
another technical glitch that has resulted in many being unable to pay for
fuel at Tesco's petrol stations. Reports of the problems spread on social
media after customers' credit cards were declined when they tried to pay for
fuel.

The problem appeared to be limited to Tesco's pay-at-pump transactions,
which allow customers to pay for petrol without having to go into the shop.
Users inputting the correct pin three times found the payment denied and
their cards locked. The terminals require users to put their cards into the
machine before they fill up their vehicle.

An RBS spokesman blamed Tesco for yesterday's problems, and confirmed that
all the bank's systems were operating normally.

Tesco said: "We are investigating reports of problems affecting some of our
pay-at-pump services. We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience
caused."

--
Mike D

On 04/01/2014 01:01, Michael R N Dolbear wrote:
"Phil" wrote

But you see the same everywhere, how few use pay-at-pump, although
self-service checkouts do seem to have gained acceptance.

Today's news gave a new reason for this

http://www.theguardian.com/business/...-petrol-glitch

But that's probably not the only reason. I like to get a paper record
for every credit card transaction, so I can check my bill every month.
I used to use the "pay at pump" machines routinely but stopped after
twice finding at the end that the machine could not produce a receipt.
If the machine had been programmed properly to tell me this at the
outset that it was out of paper I could have avoided the pump payment
option. It often doesn't take much longer to pay at the kiosk, and for
me it's worth the extra few seconds to be sure that I get a paper record
of every transaction.

I don't understand how companies can introduce new technology with so
little appreciation of the need for a resilient user-interface and
proper fall-back systems. At one petrol station in France the machine
told me at the end that it had run out of paper, but that I could insert
my card into any other free machine on the forecourt to get my receipt.
I did that, and it worked fine. I've never seen that at the
pay-at-pump machines in the UK.

A year or so back my nearest petrol station introduced fancy new
pay-at-pump machines which hardly anybody used, as far as I could see,
and now I see that they have all been taken away. It's easy to see why.


--
Clive Page

On 03/01/2014 10:25, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 12:13:42
on Thu, 2 Jan 2014, remarked:
If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting
at windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified"
individuals who don't go through the self service passport check (at
no risk and sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened"
the average person is of such technology

Also built-in problems for families travelling:

"Like Oyster, you can only pay for one person per journey with a
contactless payment card; if you are travelling in a group, each
person will have to use a separate contactless payment card or
other method of payment."

However, they have either withdrawn the restriction on using foreign or
prepay cards (and many tourists will have foreign prepay cards) or
they've just stopped mentioning it.

Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

Have they met the deadline set when first introduced [Dec 2012]:
her
"From the end of 2013, contactless payment cards will be accepted on the
Tube, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground and trams."

I'm not looking forward to that because it would seem it obsoletes my
"Onepulse Barclay/Oyster" - the system charges neither rather than one
or both, apparently. Will they be sending me an automatic refund for the
stored amount?

I thought that they were doing a pilot scheme first, before it came into
service on other forms of transport, besides the bus.

Will they allow capping now?

On 04/01/2014 13:38, wrote:
[snip]
I thought that they were doing a pilot scheme first, before it came into
service on other forms of transport, besides the bus.

Will they allow capping now?

Capping is indeed part of the plan (the mechanics of it are different,
as it's calculated on the central database at the end of the day, whilst
Oyster capping is calculated on the card as you travel throughout the
day - the result should be the same though).

There is indeed a pilot running:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/projectsandschemes/28751.aspx

In message , at 13:38:52 on Sat, 4 Jan 2014,
" remarked:

Have they met the deadline set when first introduced [Dec 2012]:
"From the end of 2013, contactless payment cards will be accepted on the
Tube, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground and trams."

I'm not looking forward to that because it would seem it obsoletes my
"Onepulse Barclay/Oyster" - the system charges neither rather than one
or both, apparently. Will they be sending me an automatic refund for the
stored amount?

I thought that they were doing a pilot scheme first, before it came
into service on other forms of transport, besides the bus.

Indeed, and when the bus-only pilot was announced in Dec 2012 (as quoted
from above) the wider roll-out was said to be 'from the end of 2013'.

Will they allow capping now?

I presume so, but if anyone has any more recent announcements than Dec
2012 to base that upon, I'd be happy to see them.

--
Roland Perry