The offending cards
I’ve been getting nasty stares as I enter my local train station over recent weeks, like I’m some kind of pariah, for the heinous crime of my Oyster card not opening the gates quickly enough in the London rush hour.
Now, I know every minute counts in the morning as we make that last minute dash to the train but, seriously, guys!
Anyway, despite that needless aside, the issue is I’m lazy and don’t take my card out of my wallet. Instead, I touch the wallet itself against the reader.
However, that didn’t initially explain why I was having problems all of a sudden, as it had always worked that way in the past.
I showed my Oyster card at the ticket booth and got the all-clear. So what could it be?
The lightbulb moment
Then I realised.
A few months ago Barclaycard sent me a contactless card to replace my old Egg Money credit card (as Barclaycard took over the Egg card business last year).
I didn’t initially keep it in my wallet as I use a different cashback card for spending on, but realised I ought to keep it as a back-up.
You can use the Barclaycard by tapping it against a reader at certain shops to pay for goods, so it obviously uses similar technology to Oyster, so was probably confusing the gate machines.
So, I moved the Barclaycard to a different part of my wallet and have remembered to touch my wallet on the same side as my Oyster over recent days.
Thankfully, I can now get through the gates immediately.
So the moral of the story is simple. Keep your contactless credit cards away from your travel payment card, to avoid others looking at you like you have the IQ of an amoeba.
Has this happened to you? You can leave your feedback in the MSE forum or in the comments section below.
