“Dear PoPville,
I wanted to share a frustrating issue I encountered with the new SmartTrip system since they switched over last year. I lost my wallet last week so I bought a new SmarTrip card, registered it online, transferred my funds from my old card, and even topped it up with more funds and set up automatic refill, all online. Apparently, none of that actually gets sent to your new card until you tap your card at the same metro station at least 24 hours apart so it can “localize” (whatever that means).
I primarily rely on the bus and ended up running out of money on my card but had almost $100 sitting in pending. The localization process is supposed to work when you tap in on buses as well, but when I called WMATA about it I was told it sometimes takes longer (and I’ve been using my new card for over a week so it seems like “longer” is arbitrary or possibly never??). Hopefully this helps others who may not realize it’s an issue.”