Touch'n Go Dormant Card Issue

A few years back Touch'n Go given out a lot of free cards to the public, as a promotion of the Touch'n Go card, now they changed their strategy.

If your Touch'n Go card has not been used and top up for more than 12 months time, the card will be dormant (or suspended). Once the card has been dormant, you are not able to activate the card, the remaining amount can be claimed. Touch'n Go company will charge you RM5 as the processing fees, and it takes months time to get back the money.

The reason given by the company why they need to deactivate the unused card because their server performance is affected by those unused cards.

1. Why TNGSB needs to deactivate dormant card?
1. There is quite a number of dormant or inactive Touch 'n Go cards in our system. These dormant cards have caused unnecessary load that prevent the system from operating optimally, thus affecting our service level to all active users. By deactivating these non-active cards, we will be able to streamline our system to improve system efficiency and to provide good services to all our customers.

By today's standard, a few millions cards is not really a big issue for server processing. If the company can not handle the few millions cards, do you think they can handle millions of dollars?

If you compare the smart card policy with other Asian countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan or even China. All smart card in these countries can be activated easily, even you have stop using it for more than 12 months time.

Is not all bad move done by Touch'n Go company. They have done something better as well. They have migrated to a new web system. The old e-statement website is not working anymore. You need to register again with the new website (https://tngportal.touchngo.com.my/), you can only manage 1 card with the original website, but now you can manage more cards with the new website.

I don't think server processing is an issue. As a promotion for the Touch'n Go card, the card should be able to be reactivated as needed. This is just a policy issue for a lame reason.