That wasn't my experience. I just went to a ticket desk and they not only gave me my deposit back but also the remaining balance on not one but two cards. Wasn't a hassle at all.

That was at the underground Victoria station ticket counter.

> to get the "deposit" back, you need a proof of address,

That's only for registered cards. Which makes perfect sense, because they're registered to an address to prevent people stealing them and returning them for cash

That's a rather bad argument; that's like saying you should only be able to use cash that is registered to an address, to prevent people from stealing it.

I don't understand your comment.

You don't have to register your card. If it is unregistered and someone steals it there is nothing you can do to recover any money on the card.

You can choose to register it, in which case you can transfer the balance to a new card in the case it is lost or stolen.

That actually sounds like a decent idea.

Bitcoin is already this way. All "cash" is associated with an address. To use that cash you need to be the owner of that address.

Pretty different senses of "address", though! A street address or a cryptographic key.

Yeah, it's an interesting comparison. For the Oyster card, you just need proof that you live where you say you do. For bit coin you just need to not lose your key. Similar purpose. Different execution.

note: lose as in someone steals it.If it's totally lost the money is gone, as we know.

MTA does both. Serious question: what difference does it make? I have a hard time understanding the outrage here.

Government taking money -> instant outrage.

No, it's because you're forced to pay for services not rendered.

That's frustrating for rare users (tourists, etc), but seems optimized for the regular traveler.

The rare user might prefer to buy Exactly One (or two or four) tickets, as they know they won't use the excess. This is similar to the frustration of a first-time user at the bay area ferries, where the process of registration, app installation, etc, is much less convenient than most parking.

The regular user, however, doesn't care as much about the initial overhead, as the convenience outweighs the overhead. A remainder balance on the card is less frustrating than for a tourist, as they know they're going to fill it up again.

That said, it would have been nicer if the transit company had phrased pricing in terms of Number Of Rides, rather than dollars (dollar amounts made up):

  4 rides ($10.42)
  10 rides ($21.37)
  50 rides ($90)
  100 rides ($180)

It is still strictly worse for the repeat riders if they get a card valued at 10.41 than 7.91. The only reason for the city to even allow someone to do it is to underhandedly get more money when someone inevitably loses their metro card.

"forced"

When I last travelled to London, with kids, I was researching how to get an Oyster card. I'd used one before but borrowed from relatives in London, that wasn't going to work this time.

So I assumed I'd need a "tourist" Oyster as I wasn't a resident. But when I looked in to it as a tourist you had to book well in advance so they can post a card to you - whilst if you ignore the "tourist" offering you can just pick up the card at your arrival station (Victoria for me, very easy, was from a machine IIRC). Also the charges seemed higher for tourists somehow and there seemed to be difficulties giving the card back and getting a refund - I could see no reason to have a tourist Oyster.

One of the kids travelled free, with me, as it happened which was great. The only problem is that the automated turnstiles wouldn't let us through separately without us paying twice (for which we'd need a different Oyster) and I got "munched" on a couple of occasions one of which gave me a very sore back, it was quite vicious.

Traveller beware!

In the situation you are travelling with a kid who is eligible for free travel, rather than going through the barriers you should've just spoken to the the person on duty. Theres always at least 1 person standing by one of the barriers that would let you through.. takes like 5 seconds longer but doesn't involved getting munched :)

Not always, I looked. I imagine if you're familiar with the stations you can do that without being stampeded, getting lost, etc..

Got my deposit back as a tourist. No problem. Had to give them my address as you said.