Shit card

Checking in at the public transport with the chipcard

If there's any business that knows how to shake money out of their customers' pockets, it's the public transport business in Amsterdam. Not only did the prices of the fares go up tremendously in the past few years, but they also introduced a new way to prevent people from taking free fares: the chipcard. You have to check in when you enter the bus and afterwards you have to check out.

It's good that there's a system that forces people to pay honestly for their fares. But the problem with this card is that if you forget to check out, you pay the maximum price for a day, which is 4 euro. And it's only human to, despite all the signs and warnings, forget to check out. So of course, it happened to me as well. After a day of hard working I mindlessly walked past the little flipdoors in the tram.

To prove that the public transport company aren't the money hungry wolves that they appear to be, they temporarily give you the opportunity to get your money back. For this you have to send a letter with a receipt and they put 4 euro back on your bank account. Of course even a moron understands that they use this cumbersome procedure to get your shitty little amount of money back is invented to reduce the amount of reimbursements. And this cunning scheme probably works, even with the stingy Dutch people.

And it works for me as well. I'm not going to send a stupid letter. But I do want my money back. Just out of principle. So in order to spare my valuable time and that of the poor fools who need to open the incoming letters of tightwads, I get the money back my own way. While checking in I simply hold the card in front of the check in machine just far enough that it looks like I'm checking in, but not close enough to activate it. This way I travel for free, and the best thing is... I don't have to think about checking out. I will do this for five fares, so that I have exactly the amount of money back that I've lost. After these five times, honest as I am, I'm going to pay again. I've done it four times already and it's amazing how simple it is. Tomorrow I will have one free ride on the tram and then I'm reimbursed. Without anybody knowing it and without filling out stupid forms. Big middle finger to the public transport of Amsterdam and their shitty little chipcard.