Her iPhone died. It led to her being charged as a criminal

Eh. In Easter Europe passengers beat up inspectors.

Also, it's illegal not to have an ID with you at all times. So people usually carry wallets. I carry cash all the time. Better to get robbed (small chance) than get stuck somewhere without money (i.e. CC doesn't work because the bank is having "software issues" or the POS terminal is broken or whatever...)

You know what irks me? Besides the fact that the fine for not paying is atrociously high, besides the fact that such a transgression can even show up on a Visa query, besides the fact that this couldn’t be resolved without a court, besides the fact that the reporter missed their court date...

What irks me is that some company spent millions of taxpayer dollars designing this contactless payment system and couldn’t be bothered to provide a real-time readout to the ticket inspector where the passenger could just provide their name to confirm they paid.

But even more than that, I irks me that TFA came away from this experience hating Apple Pay. This singular component in the entire chain which was completely blameless.

This isn't about being caught without cash. Whenever I've gone to London I've used my contactless credit card to pay for transport, not because I don't carry cash, but because it's convenient -- you just hold it near the gate and go through; no need to visit a ticket machine.

A problem with this convenience is that you don't get any kind of physical receipt to prove you paid. Perhaps in my case, a ticket inspector could scan my credit card to check it was used to pay, but in the case of a dead phone, it can't be queried.

Yea. Very strange perspective in this article.

At the end they are acting like Apple Pay (or ant mobile payment) is a risk of sorts. This type of transit issue is actually quite unique. Their example of someone buying coffee at Starbucks with their phone is completely different. If your phone doesn’t before you pay, boo-hoo, no coffee. If it does after you pay they’re still going to call out your name and you grab your cup.

Almost exactly like you are suggesting (and I agree) the transit system should work. When you pay, they have a record of it.

I guess the moral of this story is, if you're about to get on the bus, make sure you have enough battery left on your phone to last until you reach your destination. I use my phone to pay for a bus ticket every day, but I only have to show it when I get on. If I only had 1% left on the battery, I'd probably buy a paper ticket before heading to the gate though, just to be safe.