Public transit card company made €30 mil. in 5 years from funds on expired OV-chip cards

In the past five years, Translink - the company behind the public transport chip card (OV chip card) - has retained nearly 30 million euros in funds left over on expired OV chip cards. That may increase by another 36 million euros as the refund period expires on more cards, AD reports. According to the newspaper, Translink keeps this as quiet as possible.

Last year alone, the company pocketed 9 million euros in balances from old OV-chip cards, AD found in Translink’s annual report. And with the OV-chip card slowly becoming redundant - checking in is now also possible with a bank card or smartphone - Translink is pocketing more and more forgotten balances as people switch to more convenient forms of payment.

People have five years to reclaim money left on their expired OV chip cards. But Translink’s annual reports show that this very often doesn’t happen. “People don’t know they can ask for money back from their card. Translink gives little publicity to it. That’s where things go wrong,” Sanne van Galen of travelers’ organization Rover said to AD.

In its latest annual report, Translink claims that it has done “everything” through “many initiatives in recent years” to get travelers to claim their unused balances back. According to Translink, it is the traveler’s responsibility to request a refund. “With anonymous OV chip cards, we do not know the cardholder. We find it very difficult to reach them,” spokesperson Gebrant Corbee told the newspaper.

The participating public transport companies and traveler organizations agreed in the past that the money left over on OV chip cards would go toward benefiting the traveler. According to AD, Translink used 5 million euros worth of forgotten funds last year. The vast majority - 4.1 million euros - went to Translink IT activities. Translik paid 80,000 euros to the Linda Foundation, which helps impoverished children, and 500,000 euros went to OV chip cards for Ukrainian refugees.

The company spent nothing on new initiatives to get travelers to claim the money left on their expired cards last year, according to the newspaper.