Invalid bank cards permitting exits at TfL barriers

[Adam Williams]

I mean...

Monzo fined £21m after customers used No 10 and Buckingham Palace as addresses

FCA finds digital bank failed to employ adequate controls when signing up new clients

www.theguardian.com

Do you think all of the legacy banks are better at this?

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

OEP?

The Oyster Extension Permit that some TOCs required to be added to the card before using a Travelcard and pre-pay credit to travel outside the usual zones. SWT as was seemed very keen on these. They were free, and added at ticket machines. Very convenient but they didn't last long

 

[mmh]

OEP?

Oyster Extension Permit. It was an (awful) way when PAYG was new to allow people who had travelcards on their card to travel outside their zones and use PAYG credit for the extra amount. You set it at ticket machines.

Thankfully the system was changed to work properly and it went away.

 

[blimmo]

This isn't what's happening. You can't be blocked into the system because TfL made a deliberate choice that this was the best option

What I meant was that I suspect that one of the factors TfL used to decide that this was the best option was that most of their network is barriers at both ends. On the national rail network often the revenue protection strategy is based on only barriering one end of the journey which may make letting out all cards less attractive.

 

[Starmill]

What I meant was that I suspect that one of the factors TfL used to decide that this was the best option was that most of their network is barriers at both ends. On the national rail network often the revenue protection strategy is based on only barriering one end of the journey which may make letting out all cards less attractive.

Yes fair enough. However, it's still what happens on National Rail services if they're covered by the TfL system (so nearly everywhere throughout London and the South East where there's pay as you go, at least soon).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Feb 2026 ==

This isn't correct. Oyster cards can be invalid for exit even if cleared to enter, for example if they were hotlisted but had dropped off the locally stored list because of non-use. In the past, exit was also denied for lack of OEP when needed.

That is true for banned cards. I think the situation being implied was one of low balance, where Oyster would still let you out.

 

[Haywain]

That is true for banned cards. I think the situation being implied was one of low balance, where Oyster would still let you out.

Yes, that was my thinking.

 

[londonbridge]

No, the system is designed not to prevent exit. Similarly, with an Oyster card if you have been allowed to enter the system you will never be prevented from leaving.

I think that's unlikely. Pay as you go Oyster has always allowed cards to always exit (a negative balance can exit) and I imagine when it was expanded to contactless it similarly allowed all cards to exit.

That’s not completely true. Way back when Oyster was first introduced to national rail I was meeting a friend to go to a concert at the o2. I tapped in at my local station and travelled to the station where I was meeting them, got off my train and hung around on the platform until they arrived before continuing our journey. At this point and because it was still relatively new I had no concept of maximum journey times. When we got to North Greenwich and I tried to tap out I got “seek assistance”. It turned out that by waiting on the platform, rather than tapping out, meeting my friend on the concourse and then tapping in again, I’d exceeded the time limit and had been charged a maximum fare which put my Oyster into negative balance. The gateline attendant let me out and told me to top up and to count myself lucky that he wasn’t giving me a penalty fare.

I told the above story in one of my early posts when I first joined these forums, and it can also be found on @MikeWh old original Oyster site

 

[zero]

I think that's unlikely. Pay as you go Oyster has always allowed cards to always exit (a negative balance can exit) and I imagine when it was expanded to contactless it similarly allowed all cards to exit.

Shortly after I first arrived in London in 2006, I went to IKEA Croydon. I didn't understand that I had to touch in to the tube at Wimbledon when arriving by tram. The barriers didn't let me out in Zone 1. There seems to be an internal threshold for how far it will let you go negative when touching out, but experimenting is expensive and risks prosecution.

If we can think back to when Revolut and Monzo banks became popular, it was apparently easy to open accounts with them, there was a ‘hack’ floating around on Tiktok etc that even with £0 on your account, you can always touch out.

I have no personal knowledge of how difficult it is to open an account with any of these banks, but I imagine the sudden attraction is that it was easier to do so under pseudonyms or false details so you can be anonymous? Since they have no IRL branches and all verification takes place online.

I mean...

Monzo fined £21m after customers used No 10 and Buckingham Palace as addresses

FCA finds digital bank failed to employ adequate controls when signing up new clients

www.theguardian.com

Do you think all of the legacy banks are better at this?

Revolut is still not a full bank in the UK.

Monzo is (or maybe was) well-known for only asking for a passport to sign up and you could get your card posted anywhere in the UK. This made it useful for people migrating to the UK who had yet to get a permanent address, as well as British citizens residing outside the UK who unexpectedly needed to open a UK account quickly.

High street banks may have been lax about what they accepted as proof of address, but I don't think any of them completely ignored it, at least in the past 10-20 years.

Anyone with some imagination and the desire can evade fares on TfL, but doing so on a regular and predictable basis is what gets you caught. If you've opened bank accounts with stolen details, scammed someone into giving you control of their account, or have fake documents that can fool banks, there are so many more profitable crimes you could commit than saving a few pounds on a tube fare.

 

[AlterEgo]

Monzo is (or maybe was) well-known for only asking for a passport to sign up and you could get your card posted anywhere in the UK. This made it useful for people migrating to the UK who had yet to get a permanent address, as well as British citizens residing outside the UK who unexpectedly needed to open a UK account quickly.

Useful for fraudsters as well!

 

[boiledbeans2]

That’s not completely true. Way back when Oyster was first introduced to national rail I was meeting a friend to go to a concert at the o2. I tapped in at my local station and travelled to the station where I was meeting them, got off my train and hung around on the platform until they arrived before continuing our journey. At this point and because it was still relatively new I had no concept of maximum journey times. When we got to North Greenwich and I tried to tap out I got “seek assistance”. It turned out that by waiting on the platform, rather than tapping out, meeting my friend on the concourse and then tapping in again, I’d exceeded the time limit and had been charged a maximum fare which put my Oyster into negative balance. The gateline attendant let me out and told me to top up and to count myself lucky that he wasn’t giving me a penalty fare.

I told the above story in one of my early posts when I first joined these forums, and it can also be found on @MikeWh old original Oyster site

I had a similar story. Because my train broke down, I exceeded max journey times. When I attempted to exit the station, it deducted a max fare, bringing my Oyster balance negative, and denied me exit.