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There's a few comments here that say it only applies to tourists, because the problem is only manifest at the card's end of life: lose the card/stop needing it
by lorddoig 12y ago
There's a few comments here that say it only applies to tourists, because the problem is only manifest at the card's end of life: lose the card/stop needing it and that's the point you get shafted for the excess balance. Fingers crossed a resident won't see a card EOL, they'll just top it up over and over, and so it seemingly doesn't apply.
But equating long life with infinite life isn't quite right here. Every card will stop being used some day. If the MTA know with certainty that X proportion of cards do EOL with Y USD on them, then they can safely consider X × Y as earnings and spend it immediately, ergo the moment of first top up is the true moment of shafting. I'd bet good money that the MTA's internal figures record earnings from excess balances by counting cards newly registered, not cards recently expired.
I studied econ at a good school, and I can tell you that an economist would 100% equate this with theft. Because it is.
edit:
This - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8274314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8274314 - is a very good point. Ensuring cards always have a meaningful balance on them is probably the best way to stop people treating them as disposable (I imagine their cost is non-negligible). If they're given out free, it's clever, but if you have to buy them (like London's Oyster cards) it's even more of a scam. To have a totally clear moral conscience the MTA should really let you return the card and cash out.
- wdewind 12y agoSerious question: why are you assuming cards EOL with balance on them more frequently now than when they had rounded amounts?
- tehwebguy 12y agoI would assume that people are more likely to throw away a card that is nearing the end of it's usable life if it had a zero balance. But if a balance remains it seems like one would be more likely to add more money to the card.
- cauterized 12y agoYou can also transfer your balance to a new card.
- lorddoig 12y agoI don't. But if you have one of these cards and only top up using the default options as the original post describes (and I imagine most people do), it's effectively impossible for one of these cards to reach a zero balance. It will always EOL with a positive balance. Not so with Oyster, mine hits zero or very close quite often. Difference there is you buy an Oyster card up front.
- pkaye 12y agoYou cant do "add fare" like in the bay area BART system make up the difference?
- nerfhammer 12y agoyes, you can
- arthurgibson 12y agoAlso not mentioned is that these cards expire in some 3-6 month range and are usually never redeemed.
- yasth 12y agoExpiration is 1 year from issue, and will auto replace with a new card if they are filled in the last month.
- nerfhammer 12y agoAlso the station agent can replace it for you even after its expired
- lorddoig 12y agoI just looked into this. From http://web.mta.info/metrocard/mcCombinationValue.htm http://web.mta.info/metrocard/mcCombinationValue.htm - > Your MetroCard can be refilled with time and value for about one year. The MetroCard Vending Machine will tell you when the card expiration date is coming up, and will issue you a new MetroCard at no charge with all your purchases on it. I haven't had my coffee today. I took that quite wrong at first.
- idunno246 12y agoAt one year they replace the card for free. Seems like a good thing, so you don't end up with one that falls apart...
- bradleyjg 12y agoI can tell you from experience that the cards don't last a year. They are very flimsy and they stop working sooner than that. If a card becomes too damaged to read you are supposed to send it in to some MTA address to get a replacement but I've done that and never heard back from them. You can also go to their office in lower Manhattan during business hours and do it in person. Which is okay if you work downtown, but useless otherwise.
- rayiner 12y agoTheft? Really? The numbers, $9, $19, $39 are set so in the common case of someone paying with a $10 or $20, with the $1 card fee, no change needs to be refunded. The MTA machines only dispense change in coins, and because people are unlikely to pay with coins or small denomination bills like ones, a different default would mean more frequent refilling of the change reserves.
- lorddoig 12y agoIrrespective of the justification - and I outlined a good one in my edit - it's definition doesn't change. Also it would be way simpler to deduct a $1 fee from the chosen amount if a new card is needed, no?
- philh 12y agoI don't think economists are the people who usually work with the definition of theft. And I don't think a lawyer would equate this with theft.
- rayiner 12y agoThe justification undermines the whole premise of the article, which is that the amounts are set to leave a large unusable balance on each card.
- thedufer 12y agoOh yes, it would go over much better to promise a $10 card and then give only $9. That's _definitely_ theft. > if a new card is needed This is the "new card" screen. That question has already been answered if you get here. The "topping up" screen advertises $10/$20/$40 instead of $9/$19/$39 (making the intent perfectly clear).
- yasth 12y agoMTA internally only claims the revenue as earnings once they expire. They could do it your way, but the accountants would throw a fit. Also while they now cost $1 for most of the program life they were indeed free. Anyways regular users use unlimiteds, bank account backed cards, or do some fancy rolling over of tax advantaged cards for the most part.
- lorddoig 12y agoYou're right, the accountants probably wouldn't have it anywhere close to the official books. edited from previous because I completely misread the part about auto expiry.
- cpwright 12y agoThe unlimited doesn't make sense if you only use the subway twice a day (to and from work). You can roll the balance of a nearly expired card onto a new card, but I don't know if there is a way to recapture your $1 card fee.
- thedufer 12y agoIf you use the subway twice a day, 5 times a week, you're only one round-trip per month away from break-even on a monthly unlimited. So unless you really never do anything else, its a pretty sensible option.
- lucaspiller 12y agoI'm not sure what the deal is now, but orignally the amount you paid for a London Oyster card was refundable (along with any remaining balance). That and the daily spend limit on Otster meant it was usually cheaper for tourists to buy these than a travelcard.
- moogleii 12y agoYou can get the balance of your EasyPay MTA card reimbursed as well.
- walshemj 12y agoYes oyster on the tube is a LOT cheaper than actually buying a ticket - I just have one for the odd occasion I need to make a tube journey. The real rip off in the UK is the rail season tickets nd the above inflation increases. For a lot less than I will be paying to travel 60 miles to London in Germany I could get country wide travel !
- lucaspiller 12y agoCommuter tickets into London are crazy. I had to work with a client on site the other month and stayed in Crawley (about 30 miles outside of London), I paid £22 to get into London that morning. In the evening I travelled across the country home (about 150 miles) for £15.
- na85 12y ago>an economist would 100% equate this with theft. Because it is. It is not theft, and this attitude is deeply disturbing.
- lorddoig 12y agoConstructive! Care to elaborate on both points?
- seanflyon 12y agoTheft involves taking something against the owners will. It is disturbing that someone would consider a voluntary informed transaction theft.
- lorddoig 12y agoThe whole reason for my comment was that I thought the analysis going on here was wrong. I put forward a pretty solid case for why the chatter up to then wasn't the right way to look at the dynamics here. If we're analysing it and getting it wrong - how can we reasonably assert that the average, passive consumer is correctly informed? The use of the word 'theft' was evidently an almighty error here. How about: Monopolistic profit-seeking behaviour which is enabled by the consumer's lack of information about the transaction and a purposeful complication of the transaction mechanism Further, in what way does it "disturb" you? Are you terrified by the notion that maybe one day you'll try to sell me something and I'll scream theft? What a spine-tingling, yet wholly unlikely, nightmare that would be. And are we talking Girl Interrupted-disturbed, or something deeper? I'm going to get blasted for saying this but what I find mildly disturbing is the willingness of people to jump to the defence of organisations which are trying to screw them (even after a blow by blow explanation of exactly how they're being screwed) just because they're publicly-run. Hating on econ is trendy in this kind of scene at the moment, but most economists aren't these mystical agents fighting for some kind of fantasy right-wing utopia - just scientists that observe things and speculate on their properties. Economics is fundamentally the mathematical description of aggregate human behaviour, and so any paper with a new idea that makes it into popular culture is all too easily interpreted as some kind of manifesto for social change, after which the hate piles on thick and fast. It's an unfortunate misunderstanding that's creating biases which could ultimately end up depriving society of a lot of very useful knowledge.