All London buses are now cashless since July. You can use an Oyster card, a contactless payment card, a Travelcard or a Bus & Tram Pass. A single adult fare is £1.45, considering it was £2.20 cash before, I think that is a good way forward.

How much does the country support London Transport. Compared to bus fares in the rest of the country, £1.45 is ridiculously cheap. £1.45 is about enough for about 1/2 mile in a lot of places, and for 1/2 a mile, it is quicker and easier to walk, even more so when the buses only run once every two hours on weekdays only.

Actually, Bernie, for several years now; Gas station pay pumps require the customer to put in their Postal Zip Code for security to authorize the charge on the pump. Since your card is from outside the US; you may not have been subject to that security measure.

In fact, us Canucks are hit by this. You can't enter a Canadian postal code on the gas pump keyboard, so the credit card company will give you a special postal code to use. One more string of numbers to remember. Sigh. If you are near the border, the attendants understand this, and will activate the machine after seeing your Canadian credit card. Further south, they look at you like you have two heads, and tell you to pay cash.

However; I still wish the US would get chip and pin cards. They are much more secure.

Last May, in Colorado, my chip cards worked just fine. A few stores in smaller towns mentioned that we were the first to use a chip card since they got the new readers.

For the last 17 years the city we live in in Canada has been a target marketing area for new technologies like this. First to get debit cards into smaller stores, first to get wireless card readers to use at your table in the restaurant, first with chip cards, etc. It is sometimes a little surprising to go back in time visiting other towns, Canadian or US.

The Finns are way ahead of us on all this. I was quite surprised some 14 years ago to stick my bank card into an ATM in Tampere, and watch the screen change from Finnish to a French and English menu asking me which of the two official Canadian languages I wished to use.

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Chip and pin is so secure it prevents my mum accessing her bank account in ANY way whatsoever. Good in some ways... nightmare in others :) She can't remember her pin number and I'm not legally allowed to use her card.

Even in-branch with ID - she fails all their security questions and starts shrilly squawking "how DARE you ask such personal questions! Who do you think you are!?" leaving me to answer them instead and thereby make a mockery of the whole "secure banking thing" ... all whilst having "how dare you tell them my secrets" bawled at me thoughout.

I have a special smile and way of breathing when we "do banking" :)

Oz has just brought in PIN and RFID only transactions. Signing is now out, which is a bit of a pain as I have cards that hardly ever get used.

I don't like it because PIN's can be forgotten, When I forget my signature then the family will know it's definitely time I was taken off the streets. :)

T.A.

I have a special smile and way of breathing when we "do banking" :)

ROFL, I know exactly what you mean ;)

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/08/22/malicious-software-in-cash-registers-could-affect-more-than-1000-us-retailers/?intcmp=obnetwork

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Chip and pin is so secure it prevents my mum accessing her bank account in ANY way whatsoever. Good in some ways... nightmare in others :) She can't remember her pin number and I'm not legally allowed to use her card.

Even in-branch with ID - she fails all their security questions and starts shrilly squawking "how DARE you ask such personal questions! Who do you think you are!?" leaving me to answer them instead and thereby make a mockery of the whole "secure banking thing" ... all whilst having "how dare you tell them my secrets" bawled at me thoughout.

I have a special smile and way of breathing when we "do banking" :)

For whatever it's worth, my roommate added me to her bank accounts and I did know some of her pin numbers. This was because she would go out of town for up to two months at a time so I would pay her bills and move money around as she requested. This was in addition to a join account we used for common expenses that I would pay bills with and she would shop with. When she passed away, I needed the death certificate and the court order to move everything into estate order for the family. The only plastic I carried was my personal and joint account plastic because I could do everything I needed to online or with check. Had I needed it, we could have had additional plastic issued for the ATM machines.

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I would second Chris' comment bout getting power of attorney for your mum.
Its not that hard, and certainly when mum was very ill it saved my brother and I a lot of problems as we were not only able to pay her bills but were also able to sort out things like council tax, selling her house (she ended up in a nursing home and it was very obvious she would never be leaving there). Indeed after her death, because we'd been pulling things together for some months, it made settling her will much easier.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

There is also a durable power of attorney. Not certain which is correct for this situation - get the advice of a legal professional. I know I have a durable power of attorney for my parents in case they become unable to handle their own affairs (it is something they decided to do on the advice of their lawyer). It is, fortunately, not something I have had to invoke as they are both in good health both physically and mentally.

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BOINC WIKI

I am a rather shy, skittish man.
I would find it almost impossible to give authority over my affairs to another.
Lori and myself have discussed this, although not at length.

Carlos has expressed an interest in keeping my crunchers running should I pass.
That was a fine gesture, but I am not sure my crunchers would survive being relocated. They are stack, two by two, one on the other. The cables that connect them to the 'real world' are tangled indeed.

I am truly more worried that the kitties are attended to, and Lori and I have an agreement that should one of us depart, the most important thing at that point aside from grieving would be the care of such kitties as are left behind.

We love each other so very much, but our love of our kitties takes first place.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

But from what I've read, we (in the US)are behind with our credit cards tech. So it's easier to commit credit card fraud here.

I can remember being totally stunned when shopping in Macey's New York back in 2009 to be asked to "sign" the credit card receipt!!

The UK has had chip and pin since 2004.

Then finding all I needed to do to get fuel was to swipe my card in the pump reader, no pin, no sign, just swipe.

It surprised me even more when that was still the case last September!

I guess that is is to do with the sheer logistics of getting a chip and pin card to all users and then rolling out the necessary hardware to all outlets. Still it must make the USA a fraudsters paradise.

Actually, Bernie, for several years now; Gas station pay pumps require the customer to put in their Postal Zip Code for security to authorize the charge on the pump. Since your card is from outside the US; you may not have been subject to that security measure.

However; I still wish the US would get chip and pin cards. They are much more secure.

Speaking of gas stations, there has been some sort of way for fraudsters to capture people's CC #'s by inserting a device in the swiper. My CC number was stolen in this way.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place