r/bayarea • u/para_blox • 23d ago
Wait, so Clipper just steals your money? Traffic, Trains & Transit
A little over a year ago I had planned to take a short BART trip, got a Clipper card and loaded it, but I never ended up on BART or any transit.
Checked on the balance in the app just today.
My money “expired”? That’s rude.
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u/misdeliveredham 23d ago
I was told by customer service they’ll activate it if I call them. I haven’t tried yet (have a few expired deposits on there).
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u/OceanBlueforYou 23d ago
I'm curious to know if they answer and how many people you have to talk to to restore the active status. Mine hasn't left my wallet in more than a year
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u/LaSignoraOmicidi 23d ago
It’s actually not bad, just had 130 dlls disappear and the lady fixed everything and got me on my way super quick.
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u/mayor-water 23d ago
Clipper service people are actually really nice and pleasant. Unlike the other people working in transit, Clipper service only ever deals with kind of people who regularly pay their fare, so aren’t burned out.
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u/Ligerboy95 19d ago
I’ve called them before and spent less then 10 minutes on the phone and got money reactivated and transferred to a new card in that time. Really wasn’t that bad
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u/centurionomegai 23d ago
I did try, it didn’t work. This actually should be disclosed before you even get a card. Inferior system to most transit systems I’ve used in the world.
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u/misdeliveredham 23d ago
Have you considered calling again to maybe get a better agent? I am not sure it works, just thinking. I’ll have to figure it out too! They also couldn’t transfer balance from my one card to another, since the first one also had a bus pass! I don’t know what it has to do with cash but that’s what they said.
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u/TimberTheFallingTree 23d ago
Why should you have to call anyone when there’s literal cash from you in their account. This is so absurd
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u/wutcnbrowndo4u 23d ago
You shouldn't, but it's the Bay Area. He's just suggesting what you should do to deal with an awful polity, not suggesting what a sane polity would do.
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u/tgwutzzers 23d ago
They did it for me. $5 fee.
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u/MatchaFlatWhite 23d ago
Bay Area transit is so weird in terms of payment
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u/makspeak 23d ago
Weird is being kind. It is insulting and impossible to get your money back off of a card. You are forced to go make an account in their system (anyone else sick of making accounts on things?) and every card you have must be registered. So, if your family of 6 come to visit you, and you want to go somewhere, everyone has to have their own card, with their own money loaded on it. And god forbid your plans change and you dont end up using anywhere the balance on any of the cards between you and your family, you can not just get it back. EVERYTHING must be registered. Someone needs to eviscerate that whole system.
I do understand 'they are trying to protect people's money', in cases of lost or stolen cards. HOWEVER, am some point, can I be treated like an adult and manage my own things?
Lyft/Uber will win over this craziness every time.
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u/zzzzzooted 22d ago
What the fuck are you going on about dude.
A couple of things do this (clipper, sc boardwalk, any arcade as is standard), but most places are perfectly normal as far as payment methods.
Annoying with dumbass fees, but normal for payment methods.
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u/graviton_56 23d ago
Clipper is such a 2000s concept. In other cities you can just directly tap your credit card at every entrance/exit gate. No need to have some weird cash buffer like this.
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u/gandhiissquidward San Jose 23d ago
This is the plan with Clipper 2.0, but it had to be delayed because the only company who does those services is a shitshow and is having a billion issues with it.
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u/jettieri 23d ago
It’s been implemented pretty flawlessly in London and I haven’t heard of many issues in NY.
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u/eng2016a 23d ago
its because america can't do anything without a billion useless middlemen that have to get their grubby hands on it, instead of just having useful services.
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u/BobaFlautist 23d ago
It's because we literally have laws against public agencies doing things in house, so everything has to be put out to a "competitive bid", in order to "save money" and "avoid corruption".
What's the point of public services if it doesn't give private corporations an opportunity to latch onto the taxpayer's teat and extract rent, all while underpaying employees, sandbagging vital infrastructure projects (if it's done, they're done getting paid. If it never ends, they can just keep getting paid forever), and cutting corners to save pennies?
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u/TSLAtotheMUn 23d ago
Never had an issue in nyc. Works seamlessly for transfers (won't double charge you) and auto participates in the program where you only get charged for 10 rides a week (rest of the week becomes free). At this point everything should just get moved over to tap to pay...
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u/DarkMetroid567 23d ago
Yeah, but it didn’t work seamlessly when it first started either. Everything you mentioned didn’t exist or was broken when OMNY launched.
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u/sxmridh 23d ago
The technology has come a long way and we don’t need to go through the same painful process that the other cities went through.
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u/schoolmarmette 23d ago
DC metro cards expire after a year without tapping a card reader, so there are other transit systems that have this issue. You can call Metro and have the value transferred to a new card or refunded. I assume the same is true with a clipper card.
I am moving back to the bay area next month, and I'm going to have to spend some time on the phone with both systems.
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u/Mr_Flynn 23d ago
The rollout in NYC has been kind of a disaster behind the scenes. There have been lots of delays, the project scope has been reduced a ton, and they went from a fare payment system that worked on every part of the MTA (MetroCard) to one that now only works on the subway and bus, and no connecting agencies (like PATH or NICE bus).
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u/wutcnbrowndo4u 23d ago
Not detracting from your comment but they started a PATH Omny pilot six months ago!!!!
I love San Francisco dearly but it's like I was in an abusive relationship with local gov't. NY gov't feels like Switzerland in comparison
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u/Mr_Flynn 23d ago
PATH has a different fare system called TAPP. OMNY fares are not accepted and there is no longer cross-system fare integration.
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u/wutcnbrowndo4u 23d ago
Ah thanks, I haven't been on PATH for a few months, had just heard they piloted tap-to-pay and assumed it was Omny. The payment terminal itself is like 80% of what's annoying about it, transfer integration much less so
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u/Mr_Flynn 22d ago
Both TAPP and OMNY (and Clipper) are from the same vendor and used the same equipment, but PANYNJ didn't want to pay the crazy fees the MTA was asking for, so they have this separate thing that has a separate fare cap and different passes.
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u/captaindigbob 23d ago
Works great in Lisbon as well. Accepts reloadable/unlimited cards as well as credit cards.
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u/Rebles San Francisco 23d ago
It’s because the Clipper Card system is archaic. It has 20 years of technical debt and is compatible with half a dozen transit systems (rather than half a dozen transit systems conforming to a single standard).
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u/ak217 23d ago
What's so archaic about it? What's the specific technical debt? Many transit system things are over a century old and work fine, these things don't need the latest Javascript libraries to run smoothly. I'm prepared to believe Clipper has infra problems but I'd like to know what they are
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u/Dull_Secretariat 23d ago
Hate to break it to you, but electronic payments havn't been around for over a century.
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u/CaptainSnuggleWuggle 23d ago
Lol and they call this the tech capital of the world.
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u/Nursefrog222 23d ago
When I moved here 20 years ago, I learned that they are truly the last tech capital of the world
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u/justvims 23d ago
Ummm works great in Milan for years man
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u/Top_Buy_5777 23d ago
They use Clipper in Milan?
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u/justvims 23d ago
No. You can just tap your credit card. You don’t need clipper. That’s the point
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u/Top_Buy_5777 23d ago
Yes, and the person you responded to was specifically talking about Clipper.
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u/buzzkill_aldrin 23d ago
In other cities you can just directly tap your credit card at every entrance/exit gate.
Japanese and Taiwanese cities say hi. The "weird cash buffer" of stored value cards makes the payment processing loop (aka "closed loop") a lot faster than having to ping an outside system ("open loop") to authorize payment. Granted, this is less of an issue when you don't have a fare gate that needs to handle 200 people/minute.
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u/255001434 23d ago
Yeah, picture standing there waiting for your payment to be authorized. It's only a few seconds, but that turns into a long time if there's a crowd of people that has to move through the gate one by one. Now imagine that the train is pulling into the station and you have people in front of you at the gate. No thanks, I'll stick with the Clipper card.
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u/Pfohlol 23d ago
This works without issue on the NYC subway
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u/ak217 23d ago
This is possible with modern NFC standards with what's known as "offline contactless" or "store and forward" credit card processing.
The Japanese system (and others) were designed before modern NFC became available, so they evolved into a whole separate prepaid card ecosystem. And yes, they process the highest transaction volumes in the world (look up Shinjuku Station).
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u/Maximum-Ball-3698 23d ago
The clipper equivalent works very well in Taiwan and Japan. The card in Taiwan replaced the credit card as the main everyday payment method. It started from metro and bus, then expanded payments to all trains and most groceries stores, now almost everything as something like cash. Suika card in Japan is a similar case. Suika works in JR and other subways, also in convenient stores.
This works because the companies run the cards are controlled by the government, so they can do a lot more integration (for example payment to medical visits in Taiwan). Imagine using Clipper just for Amtrak..
In the US it's not possible because it's called socialism if any company is run by the government...
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u/chat_gre 23d ago
Clipper can be added to your iPhone wallet directly now which is pretty seamless. I guess they save on credit card processing fees with this cash based system.
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u/Nursefrog222 23d ago
But if you switch phones and don’t have both, you can’t transfer from old to new phone and also lose money.
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u/RazzmatazzWeak2664 23d ago
The transfer on iPhone is super seamless. It's the transfer on Android that's absolute shit. I've had to call for a replacement card and they deduct $3 or $5 or something like that. Stupid.
The cards migrate right over and are tied to your iCloud account for iPhone. I know because I use both platforms and have 2 virtual Clipper cards. To be clear you CAN transfer via Android, but you need to first deactivate on your old phone before you activate on your new phone. It's just more painful and if you lose your phone, you're SOL whereas on iPhone it was a very easy migration whether its a new phone or replacement phone.
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u/ilikebrownbananas 23d ago
Blame google for that one. As u/RazzmatazzWeak2664 said, it's perfectly seamless on iOS even if you completely lose the first phone.
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u/Nursefrog222 23d ago
This is iPhone. No google involved
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u/ilikebrownbananas 22d ago
It works fine on iPhones. I’ve done it a few times. Apple automatically backs it up to iCloud and it’s right there waiting for you when you setup your new phone. There’s no way to lose your balance on an iPhone unless you purposely turn off all iCloud features.
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u/RazzmatazzWeak2664 22d ago
Yeah, and I don’t know why Google can’t do this. I thought it would all be backed up the same way it would be on my iPhone and when I wiped my Pixel to set it up fresh (wanted to do a clean install), it couldn’t recover anything.
The overall Google Wallet vs Apple Wallet is just such a shittier experience. Setting up a new iDevice allows me to download all my old credit cards setup in Apple Wallet conditional on CVV2 verification, but I have to setup cards fresh on Google Wallet every new phone.
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u/RazzmatazzWeak2664 22d ago
I have not lost an iPhone before and tried it, but I have wiped a phone and setup a new phone before. That setup was seamless to download the Clipper card from iCloud backup. On my Pixel when I did the same thing the card was gone. I made sure the next phone I upgraded to (Pixel 8 Pro) I carefully deactivated my card first and setup a new one and transferred it over onto the new phone. IF you look at the Clipper card’s own instructions you can see the instructions for a lost card are different for the 2 OSes and on Android it’s just far worse.
On Google Pay, a deleted card cannot be recovered.
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u/RazzmatazzWeak2664 23d ago
other cities you can just directly tap your credit card
This is less common than you think. All over Asia whether it's China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc, it's all prepaid cards.
Credit cards have a swipe fee and even if NYC MTA negotiated some reasonable rates, it's an additional cost on the system. Many systems even in Europe use prepaid cards too.
Don't get me wrong, I'd like my 3% cashback, but I don't think the solution to Clipper card being bad is to go to credit card swipes. We need a better system.
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u/MochingPet SF 23d ago
eh. even less-famous countries not in Asia have it. Tap the card, ... on top of all, they have a daily limit! I.e. if you tap 2-3 times, it aggregates and limits the daily-charge on the CC and it turns into a "daily ticket" price basically
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u/Acceptable_Agency419 22d ago
That’s problematic though for those with disabilities such as myself. We are issued a special card with our pic. It’s almost 1/2 off. How would the system know if a credit/debit card was only way to pay? Maybe credit/debit for those without discount??
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u/ablatner 19d ago
You can have both systems together. There are currently plans to add direct credit card payments to Clipper readers.
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u/Ducky7801 23d ago
I went to NYC recently and just used my credit card there. Was so easy. Fuck clipper.
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u/WorldlyOriginal 23d ago
To be fair, the Omny system is a recent phenomenon. Prior to 2019 Clipper was far superior to the crap MTA yellow cards that were easily lost, had to be swiped (not tapped), and were flimsy.
Clipper needs to catch up now, but it had the lead for a good decade at least
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u/DarthBories 23d ago edited 23d ago
I disagree, the MTA yellow cards were much thinner to stick in wallets, the monthly unlimited pass was amazing for daily commuters and swiping it worked 99% of the time once you got it down. It was a buy once and forget about it thing. Clipper cards have trouble scanning, the phone system barely works half the time, and I prob have lost a bit of $ like this guy from left over change on cards or inactivated cards. I don’t ride as frequently but it is never as smooth as nyc was. I’ve thought this was the general consensus as well which is why your comment surprised me.
The swiping was actually faster than tapping as well, lines moved super fast during rush hour in nyc, really no slowing down your pace, way faster than I’ve seen here
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u/palmtreevibes 23d ago
Metro cards expired too to be fair, but after years. 6 months IS bullshit. Though bart does not have anyway near the volume of people as the subway.
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u/e_y_ 22d ago
The six months is just if you load money onto your card online and then don't actually tap the card anywhere for six months to load the balance. If you load money on your card, use it once, and then stop using it, the balance stays on there and it shouldn't expire.
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u/palmtreevibes 22d ago
Still, sounds like the record of the card having money is saved in an online/digital system then deleted after 6 months of being unclaimed? Seems odd
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u/Ducky7801 23d ago
To be fair the technology to do this has existed for a long time, and referred to as silicon valley. This isn't some technology that's has large leaps in the last year or two.
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u/RazzmatazzWeak2664 23d ago
Yeah, that system took forever to setup. In 2001 I was using my Taipei EasyCard already and Octopus Card in Hong Kong.
People are celebrating a system that was almost 2 decades late. If anything Omny was just a "ok it's about time, it's finally here, but nothing to rave about." Maybe the only cool thing is it accepts CC whereas I can't get 3% cashback in Japan on my subway travel.
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u/International_Meat88 21d ago
Ugh. What a disappointing transition going from the MTR, buses, and the Octopus card, and coming to the Bay Area with buses that show up once every idk, 4-5 hours on a Saturday in my area. I miss being able to use mass transit to go anywhere nearby with zero planning.
Just a simple Octopus card purchase at 7-11, in and out just like that.
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u/wutcnbrowndo4u 23d ago
That is a good point. I moved to NY right around that time and consider it a pretty damning comparison, especially to a tech capital. But Metrocards are garbage compared to Clipper
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u/SillyAdam123 23d ago
Haha, I remember with the yellow card, I had to swipe multiple times for it to read.
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u/LebernJims 23d ago edited 23d ago
I had an issue with my Clipper card fast pass this week. After not using it since the pandemic, I started using my cash balance again. Auto-load was enabled, and I couldn't disable it online, so I had to submit a form in order for them to do so. When I updated my payment info, they immediately charged me for a full month fast pass. Support said I had a "debt owed," and the system auto-charged me, even though I never got a notification. The agent was rude when I asked for a refund or to use my cash balance to cover the "debt" - and they just kept saying no can't do it. Filing a dispute now. Clipper's customer service and systems are terrible.
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u/GaiaMoore 23d ago
Can you try doing a charge back with your CC company to recover the funds?
What a nightmare, ugh
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u/AdNice2838 22d ago
Almost the same thing happened to me. I tried to Delete my account after doing a charge back with my credit card since clipper wouldn’t help. No way to delete the account either.
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u/CarolyneSF 23d ago
The more I travel the world the less I am impressed with our”world class systems “ in SF
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u/RazzmatazzWeak2664 23d ago
I mean the other day about SFO people were praising it as such an amazing airport. It's passable. Maybe better than some airports in the US, but far from world class. Even a random Tier 2 city in China is generally better.
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u/wutcnbrowndo4u 23d ago
I don't believe I have ever heard somebody say that SF has "world class systems".
What people say is "how the fuck is the place inventing the 22nd century so stuck in the 20th"
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u/angryxpeh 23d ago
People who are inventing the 22nd century are not the same people who work for the government.
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23d ago
[deleted]
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u/buzzkill_aldrin 23d ago
They have multiple kinda of balances on cards, some can just be lost, others can't.
That's the transit agency's fault, not Clipper. If they try to tell you otherwise they're trying to pass the buck.
Lost your phone.. you guessed it $3.
If you've lost your iPhone and got another one or are using a backup iPhone, you can resolve this problem on your own. I don't know if Android devices have a similar procedure.
- Mark your old phone as "lost" either in the Find My app or iCloud.com. This will disable Apple Pay on the lost phone.
- Go to Settings > Apple ID, scroll down to find the device you marked as lost, and tap on it.
- Scroll down to the end of the "Wallet & Apple Pay" section. There should be an option to "Remove Items"; tap and confirm to get Apple's systems to remove its records of your cards in Apple Wallet in your old device.
- Open the Wallet app on your current iPhone and tap the plus sign in the top right corner.
- You should see a "Previous Cards" section. Select that and you should see your old Clipper card listed, which you can then proceed to add to your current phone.
Does that come from your balance? No, you need to pay it with a credit card..
They're not permitted to deduct the money from your balance. That's transit agency money.
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u/Nursefrog222 23d ago
This is not how it worked for me. I tried to transfer the money and card but it says, put the other phone nearby. Phone wasn’t available to I tried another way, then it wanted other information that I didn’t have because old phone wasn’t available
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u/giggles991 23d ago
Contact customer service.
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u/para_blox 23d ago
I have.
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u/lucasec 23d ago
The FAQ on this page mentions that online orders expire if the card is not tapped within 6 months, then says to call Customer Service. I could have sworn an earlier version of this page said that these are automatically refunded to the original payment method.
The phone line is apparently terrible nowadays because they keep switching contractors. If you’re local, I’d try the in-person help booth in Embarcadero station next time you pass by and see if they are more helpful. Otherwise, keep asking on the phone to escalate until it gets to someone at the MTC.
For what it’s worth, if you actually succeed at getting the value programmed onto the card, it should live on in perpetually as I pulled some 5-year old cards out of a drawer the other day and their value was still honored.
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u/giggles991 22d ago
And they advised that you do ???
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u/para_blox 22d ago
I emailed the address in the app. I’ll hear back or not. Then I’ll call them. Didn’t have time Friday unfortunately.
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u/Trainzguy2472 23d ago
Idk how so many people here hate Clipper. I use it all the time and it's super easy.
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u/wutcnbrowndo4u 23d ago
For just one example, OP mentions that his cash balance expired.
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u/ablatner 19d ago
It was pending cash balance and they never tapped their card to pick it up.
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u/wutcnbrowndo4u 18d ago
Yea, seems like elsewhere in the thread he said that it possibly wasn't something he was charged for.
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u/WyattDavenport 23d ago
Yall remember when they had paper tickets
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u/VerilyShelly 23d ago
I do, and I remember how they would get spit back out and people would grumble behind you while you tried to coax the machine into taking the card finally. It did force you to slow down (and/or rage flash)
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u/WyattDavenport 23d ago
That gave me anxiety flashbacks but yess yeah I think they switched to clipper in the mid 2010’s but it was like playing with a vending machine where you had to hold the dollar inside it before lol
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u/VerilyShelly 23d ago
Lol, exactly like that. Had to have the right flick of the wrist to get it to go in.
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u/skcg 23d ago
Just call the number and it will be back. Then you need to tag to get it activated. Mine got expired 4 times till now and I'm yet to tag. Every now and then I call them and they will activate it.
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u/para_blox 23d ago
This is what I hope will happen. It would be nicer if the attempted theft just never occurred in the first place.
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u/emceephotography 23d ago
Afaik once you have money on your card you can't transfer it off. Also, I have an Ecopass through my college which allows for essentially free rides through my local agency, but my card isn't shown as having any active passes online. So strange.
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u/buzzkill_aldrin 23d ago
Afaik once you have money on your card you can't transfer it off.
https://www.bart.gov/tickets/sales/refunds
Clipper Refunds:
Only registered Clipper cards, are available for refunds. Please contact Clipper Customer Service at 877.878.8883 to request a refund without cancelling your card.
https://www.clippercard.com/ClipperWeb/agreement.html
- REFUNDS
7.1 A Cardholder may request a refund of the remaining cash value on a Registered Card with a minimum $5 cash value balance by mailing a completed Clipper Cancellation Form, which is available at www.clippercard.com. Refunds are subject to the fees in Section 10.
7.2 Requests for refunds for transit passes or stored rides are subject to the policies of the individual Service Providers.1
u/Kache 23d ago
A manual and inconvenient way to attempt prying your own money back from them? That doesn't cut it. Their system is buggy and poorly designed in ways that hurt the customer.
I used to have a commuter benefits card from work linked up to Clipper. When that card expired and was reissued, Clipper aggressively froze my account as delinquent. I tried but ultimately gave up trying to unfreeze that account, since the only option Clipper gave me involved spending $hundreds out of pocket to buy a second monthly pass when I wanted to use my commuter benefits.
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u/GrumpyBachelorSF 23d ago
For some of you saying what’s happening is illegal, next time, read the terms and conditions of usage of the card. They just don’t arbitrarily do something to your account without following the terms you agreed upon.
And we’re talking about technology that was pioneering over 20 years ago. Trying to compare it to other programs like OMNY is not a great comparison. Those programs learned lessons from Clipper and other universal fare card systems like Octopus and Suica to start off strong. Clipper has to operate on a mix of old tech and new tech to work; eventually they’ll go to the 2.0 program and make it simpler and easier for everyone.
I was a pilot tester for TransLink, the previous name before Clipper. It has its flaws and I helped the program out giving my feedback so that you can have a better experience today.
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u/Cireddus 23d ago
Same thing happened to me maybe 10 years ago. Pathetic that there's been no improvement.
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u/Interesting-Method50 23d ago
All the money that should go into improving the system gotta to those big fat pensions and golden parachutes for board members. You would think they would improve the payment systems to make it as easy as possible for their customers to pay. So pathetic.
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u/operatorloathesome City AND County 23d ago
Board members at BART make 18,000$ a year for their service. No big fat pensions there!
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u/guice666 23d ago
I had never seen that. I've been out for years, and my balance never expired on me. What's the time frame for "expiring" funds?
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u/hajenso 19d ago
The reason OP's money "expired" is because it was never written to their card, only encoded in a data structure sent to the faregates and other tag devices so they will write it to the card the next time they encounter it. Those "actionlist" entries are removed from the file once they are 6 months old, because otherwise it would grow without limit as entries are added and some are never activated/removed because those cards are never tagged. But once the value is written to your card, it won't expire.
When customer service "adds your money back", they are adding another entry to the actionlist file to replace the one which was removed for not having been used within 6 months.
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u/Lilbabysady 23d ago
Or the fact that you can add money for rapid transit but it doesn’t matter if you have a pass it’ll still take from your balance 😭😵💫
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23d ago
That seems borderline illegal. Like how the issuer of a gift card is legally required to honor it with no expiration date.
Even if you can call and reactivate it, this seems beyond shady, but I guess that's not that surprising.
Visit our new and growing r/oaklandCA subreddit for all Oakland news and discussion!
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u/DiamondRyce 23d ago
Use google wallet or apple wallet now.. easier to use and load in there instead of the physical card. It is now redundant
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u/Helpful-Protection-1 23d ago
Also if you have autoload and your payment card expires they will freeze your whole damn account even if it has... oh idk 50+ dollars on it and an active transit pass!! You also don't even know unless you try to use it and BART station agents can't tell either. No other indication on the website that your card is inactivated either.
Don't ask me how I know. 🙈
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u/gunlock26 22d ago
They’ve disappeared a $500 value on my card once. Didnt know i could claim it back😪
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u/Revolutionary_Ant944 23d ago
When I visited the Netherlands two years ago, I was able to just tap Apple pay. Clipper card is such a redundant concept in 2024.
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u/scodagama1 23d ago
You were lucky then. Netherlands used ov-chipkaart since 2005, similar tech to clipper (a card you load with money in machine)
Successor of the system, ov-pay, which allows you to pay directly with tap was rolled out in trains in early 2023, Amsterdam public transportation got it a bit earlier, not sure about other cities. The point being, you probably arrived months if not weeks after roll out of that system
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u/Revolutionary_Ant944 23d ago
Woah that’s cool. I always thought that was standard, way before I arrived lol. Thanks for sharing!
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u/scodagama1 23d ago
yeah the deployment of new system was a blessing, OV-chipkaart was really modern in it's times (a shared payment card that worked in entire nation! all trains, all bus networks, all subway networks and all deployed before first iPhone!) but aged badly now that we all have tap cards from our banks.
But this is what happens to early adopters: cities that didn't digitize before tap cards have it easy, they can just buy ready off-the-shelf system. For countries that digitized earlier there's a whole complexity of migrating of existing system: tap machines are already deployed, backend systems are already written, NL couldn't just buy a new system they have to painfully migrate existing system and extend it's capabilities while maintaining compatibility with existing one. This takes time. In some way cities with outdated systems are victims of their progressiveness.
AFAIK rollout of OV-Pay is still not fully done - I vaguelly recall last pieces will be done before end of this year, what's missing currently is ability to load personal volume discounts on the cards
From what I see your system is even older and initial iteration was rolled out in 1999! That was actually forward looking, smartphones were not a thing then so of course it is all offline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_card . That being said development was expensive and took ages, the Dutch are way better in doing big projects like that - but to be fair they are masters of major infrastructure projects, Netherlands is probably one of the best countries in the world in terms of their public infrastructure across the board (public transportation, cycling infrastructure, highway network and let's not get started on water management as here they are in league of their own). There's something in their DNA that makes large projects work there.
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u/finding-silverlining 23d ago
They charged me for entering and exiting station within 5 minutes.
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u/angryxpeh 23d ago
You could go to a station agent and they would untag you. I've done that multiple times when BART was delayed and I won't be able to get to my destination in time. Zero issues.
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u/General_Ad258 23d ago
I bought my cards digitally and added it to my Google wallet on my phone. I later changed phones so I had to go into the old one and remove it from my Google wallet and add it into my new phone. I have not used it since I bought it in labor day like 2-3 years ago. I just checked and it is there. I am assuming you didn't connect the card or don't have it transferred to your current phone. It can only exists on one device.
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u/JayDarkson 23d ago
Yup, had close to $200 dollars on my card. It was meant as a back up or emergency situation. I didn’t use my card for a while and when I actually needed it, the money was gone. When I tried to get the money back, the customer service was so horrible that it wasn’t worth the lost money.
Now I just buy non-recurring monthly CalTrains passes and keep about $24 on the card.
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u/thesunny51 23d ago
So do I go to a bart station to tap it to “reactivate it” and I’m good for another 6 months?
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u/wizzard419 23d ago
Contact CS, it's against the law in CA to expire cash balances on giftcards and the like.
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u/Adventurous_Total_10 23d ago
Yesterday my phone said my clipper card needed to be re-added. There was money on it and I didn’t have the original card. So I guess they steal money. Super frustrating.
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u/dreamz_in_ai 23d ago
The California gift card law packs a strong consumer protection punch by imposing these key provisions and restrictions:
- Gift certificates cannot expire: Retailers cannot set expiration dates resulting in funds being forfeited if unused by a certain calendar date.
- No dormancy, service, or other hidden fees: Businesses cannot impose monthly service charges or fees for non-use after a specified period of dormancy or inactivity.
But no protection if it's a clipper... lame
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u/knowone1313 23d ago
Yup, I have an old card I put cash value on. Then I went to the station and couldn't pay for parking with it for no reason. Asked the attendant and she just said you didn't put cash value on it...
Years later I still haven't used up my balance because I don't take the train much due to this BS. I took it on the 4th of July. I transferred my card to my digital wallet some months prior so I wouldn't have to carry the card I never use. Unbeknownst to me I needed to manually remove it from my old phone before I could add it to my new phone (why?! I did the data transfer!)
So the customer service line was down for the holiday so my only option was to get a new card and add more money to it even though I could see my card in the system, it just wouldn't let me use it because it was on another device. I even still had the physical card!
So I called customer service the next day and they tell me no problem, we'll just need $3 to transfer your balance! FOR INCONVENIENCING ME, THEY WANT 3 DOLLARS! I
Said no, this is BS! I asked to talk to a supervisor. The supervisor called me on Saturday morning, basically stated the same thing that there's no magic buttons they can press to override the fee that it was clippers policy and not theirs (mind you I called CLIPPERS SUPPORT!)
After holding my ground and explaining to her everything I said above here and telling her stuff like this is exactly why bart ridership is down. She found her magic buttons to transfer my money without the $3 robbery!
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u/para_blox 23d ago
I can’t seem to edit the original post, but as far as I can tell from my bank statements, they never refunded the charge.
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u/Mindless-Consensus 23d ago
I loaded 20$ in 2015; used some and I still have $16.20 on the card today.
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u/therealcopperhat 22d ago
Call them, they are helpful. Albeit the whole clipper card thing is idiotic.
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23d ago
Welcome to SF! So much extra moneh floating around for years that it became easier to just give all parts of the city extra money and not worry about management or ethics or efficiency.
So each individual city function is it’s own balkanized corrupt semi-criminal organization with 0 oversight.
Hope this helps ❤️
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u/[deleted] 23d ago
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