Now that there are working Translink readers on all Muni busses and trains, we decided to get a card. The card-getting process is easy - just sign up on the site as a trial user and the card shows up a week or so later.

But actually using it? Not so much. We added value the other night, and will be taking the bus today. So, we went to the website to see if the deposit went through and the card is usable. Well, we tried. See, Translink doesn't let you check your balance online, only on the phone. We understand that they can only get your balances as of the previous business day. That's fine. But we've been able to get bank balances online since 1998 or so, guys. That's an annoying flaw.

So we called the number to get our balance, as instructed on the site. We entered the card serial number, and the robot voice said "your card cannot be found." This as we were reading the card serial number off of the My Translink page on the website. The only thing we can think of is that Translink is running off of different databases for Web and phone. Which would be crazy. Anyone out there know why this would happen?

Bottom line? We'll call customer service tonight when we have some time to figure out why our card doesn't exist, but we're still carrying quarters today.