Paul wrote:
Mizter T wrote:
snip
No - because when you lose your Oyster card, you call the Oyster card
helpline and they block your lost card from being used, then send you a
new one. The new one would be the recipient of the auto-topup credit
from then on, as well as having whatever balance from your lost card
transferred over onto it.


Yes, but I doubt if they would pay for any purchases made on your lost
card before you informed them that it was missing. I think most banks
and credit card companies will, providing the user has not been negligent.

Different banks have differing policies, but yes, as long as you
haven't been negligent and tell them sharpish it seems they'll cover
the cost.

The point here though is that if you lose your Oyster card, it'd be
more akin to losing cash rather than a credit/debit card (which IMO
isn't really the same as giving someone the keys to your house and
saying 'take what you like'!). The person who steals it can only spend
the amount on it, and the system is not designed for you to have a
large balance loaded to your card. I don't know whether there's a limit
to the amount of money you can load on your card when doing so in
person, but there's a £50 maximum when you do so online.

If you were to use the auto-topup system, I'm sure there would be a
similar limit as to the amount the system would take from your
credit/debit card to add to your Oyster card, and if you were concerned
about loss you could make this a lower sum (say £10 or £20 when
needed).

Ultimately, I think that many would find it useful, but of course if
anyone was worried about it then they don't have to use the system.
Indeed I wouldn't recommend it to one of my scatterbrained friends. She
doesn't trust herself with a monthly Travelcard so buys a weekly one,
and she manages to lose an average of at least one a month. She doesn't
have an Oyster card, which is just as well as I reckon the Oyster
system couldn't cope with such consistant incompetence!