On 04/12/2015 14:51, Roland Perry wrote:
2015, Clive Page remarked:
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).

I've just got more information on this, by chance. Halifax says of a
conctact-less card that "the first time you use it for any transaction
you will need to enter your PIN. Once you've done that your card is
ready for contact-less payments."

And I just checked the website of Nationwide Building Society which has
different and rather ambiguous wording but to much the same effect -
except that they say the initial transaction can be a chip and signature
one. So it doesn't appear that there is any flag on the card that has
to be updated by using it with a PIN the first time, the flag (if any)
must be on the bank's own servers. Nor does it appear that you need to
use it with a potentially contact-less terminal but with a PIN first
time, provided you have used that card somewhere with a PIN beforehand,
even an ATM.

This makes me more worried than I was - it means that any of my
contact-less cards could be stolen and used for a whole string of
transactions under £30 by anyone else with no PIN. I wonder how I would
establish that I didn't make these purchases myself.

Rather bizarrely, the Nationwide site says
"For extra security, you might occasionally be asked to enter your
4-digit PIN, or sign."

This is just after pointing out that you can use them for travel on
London Transport in place of an Oyster card. I'll bet a bus or tube
gate-line never asks for your PIN.


--
Clive Page

On 09/12/2015 17:09, Offramp wrote:
A great thing about the internet is that someone asks a question like,

"Is it no longer possible to buy a single bus ticket?"

and he gets nearly one HUNDRED replies!

Superb!

And most of them don't attempt to answer the question.

--
Clive Page

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

wrote in message
...
In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message , at 19:27:10 on Tue, 8 Dec
2015, Mizter T remarked:

And presumably these courier services would install pillar boxes
with once or twice daily collections in almost every urban street
the country

They are much more sparse than that. On average perhaps one every
ten minutes walk. The one nearest me has only a single collection
each day, at about 8.30am!

Five mins walk, perhaps, in an urban setting. From my front door,
I've got four that I can think of well within 5 mins walk.

YMMV in an urban setting outside the M25.

This urban setting outside the M25 still has evening box
collections with
more than 4 within 5 minutes walk of our house.

presumably that's because you have 4 post offices within 5 minutes walk

not many people are this lucky

Not more than two post offices within that number. The nearest is within
100m of the front door while the 4 don't include the nearest post office,
where any posting has to be handed over the counter as it has no box close
by.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

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

wrote in message
...
In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message , at 19:27:10 on Tue, 8 Dec
2015, Mizter T remarked:

And presumably these courier services would install pillar boxes
with once or twice daily collections in almost every urban street
the country

They are much more sparse than that. On average perhaps one every
ten minutes walk. The one nearest me has only a single collection
each day, at about 8.30am!

Five mins walk, perhaps, in an urban setting. From my front door,
I've got four that I can think of well within 5 mins walk.

YMMV in an urban setting outside the M25.

This urban setting outside the M25 still has evening box
collections with
more than 4 within 5 minutes walk of our house.

presumably that's because you have 4 post offices within 5 minutes walk

not many people are this lucky

Not more than two post offices within that number. The nearest is within
100m of the front door while the 4 don't include the nearest post office,
where any posting has to be handed over the counter as it has no box close
by.

You're lucky to have post boxes still collected in the evening

Round my way the only ones that get that are the ones outside the post
office, all the rest get opened at about 8:30 as postie walks past on his
delivery

A change they made about 2 years ago

tim

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

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

wrote in message
...
In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message , at 19:27:10 on Tue, 8 Dec
2015, Mizter T remarked:

And presumably these courier services would install pillar boxes
with once or twice daily collections in almost every urban
street the country

They are much more sparse than that. On average perhaps one every
ten minutes walk. The one nearest me has only a single collection
each day, at about 8.30am!

Five mins walk, perhaps, in an urban setting. From my front door,
I've got four that I can think of well within 5 mins walk.

YMMV in an urban setting outside the M25.

This urban setting outside the M25 still has evening box
collections with
more than 4 within 5 minutes walk of our house.

presumably that's because you have 4 post offices within 5 minutes walk

not many people are this lucky

Not more than two post offices within that number. The nearest is within
100m of the front door while the 4 don't include the nearest post
office, where any posting has to be handed over the counter as it has no
box close by.

You're lucky to have post boxes still collected in the evening

Round my way the only ones that get that are the ones outside the
post office, all the rest get opened at about 8:30 as postie walks
past on his delivery

A change they made about 2 years ago

I know. Another reason why I like living in a city centre.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In uk.transport.london message MIOdnaaWOsLD3vXLnZ2dnUU78dOdnZ2d@giganew
s.com, Wed, 9 Dec 2015 09:06:06, posted:

This urban setting outside the M25 still has evening box collections with
more than 4 within 5 minutes walk of our house.

If you still live in the same place, your 5-minute-area surely has one
of the highest concentrations of letter-writers in the UK. It may be
that so many are provided there not for the convenience of perambulating
posters as such but to save the poor post-collectors having to extract
envelopefuls from boxes crammed to bursting-point with erudite epistles.

--
(c) John Stockton, Surrey, UK. Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Merlyn Web Site - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.

In article id,
lid (Dr J R Stockton) wrote:

In uk.transport.london message
, Wed, 9 Dec 2015
09:06:06, posted:

This urban setting outside the M25 still has evening box collections with
more than 4 within 5 minutes walk of our house.

If you still live in the same place, your 5-minute-area surely has one
of the highest concentrations of letter-writers in the UK. It may be
that so many are provided there not for the convenience of perambulating
posters as such but to save the poor post-collectors having to extract
envelopefuls from boxes crammed to bursting-point with erudite
epistles.

You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

But I think most of the boxes are positioned where they are for historical
reasons. The closest one used to be close to the sub-post office until it
closed over 30 years ago. When another one opened about 5 years ago at the
other end of the street they didn't put one outside it. Another is at the
main post office which has moved twice in recent decades and wasn't within 5
minutes' walk at one time.

--
Colin Rosenstiel