Like many other commuters, I keep my ez-link card inside my wallet and just touch the whole wallet on the card readers. That worked fine for me until a few weeks ago when I started getting read errors everytime I tried to board a bus or train. I would have to take the ez-link card out of my wallet and tap it directly on the reader to get it to work.I couldn't figure out the problem and had resigned myself to having to buy a new ez-link card at a loss of $5 (non-refundable card cost !).
Luckily, before I bought the card, my daughter told me that her school-mate had had the same problem but had deduced that the problem was caused by keeping a cashcard and ezlink card in the same wallet. That surprised me because I had been carrying a cashcard together with the ezlink card in my wallet for several years without any problem. Still, I tried the experiment and found that indeed, whenever I placed the cashcard together with the ezlink card, the ez-link card could not be read. When I took the cashcard out of my wallet, the ez-link card worked fine.
Coincidentaly, or not so coincidentally, I had bought the cashcard a few weeks back and when I examined the cashcard, I saw a new icon on the back of the card (arrowed above). Then I remembered that I had read somewhere that NETS was going to introduce a combination contact and contactless cashcard.
"From Supermarkets and food-stall operators to schools, everyone is encouraged to deploy CEPAS on their smartcards or even their mobile devices, and use them seamlessly and safely on all CEPAS enabled terminals.
“Today, we have the technology and the capability to deliver the next generation of payment solutions. We are enthusiastic and ready to offer a solution which enables users to make payments for road tolls under the ERP framework, pay for public transport or make retail purchases."
Obviously NETS had already introduced these combi-cashcards and the super-duper contactless cashcard was interfering with the ez-link card.In the long run, I suppose it will be more convenient to have a single card instead of two cards, but couldn't NETS at least have warned people about the interference ? It's entirely foreseeable that many people do have to carry both types of cards around and I'm sure I'm not the only one who is wondering why my ez-link card suddenly doesn't work properly.I wonder, though, whether we really will be better off with contactless cashcards ? Talk about virtual money - money just sucked out of your combi-cashcard without anyone even touching the cashcard. Scary thought.
