Octopus enhances customer service and improves lost card protection

Octopus brings convenience to everyday life in Hong Kong. You can make payments with your Octopus for transportation, shopping and buying food – it's even more convenient than cash. At Octopus, we aim to provide you with a comprehensive customer service experience by offering a fast, reliable and diversified payment option. From now on, if you unfortunately lose your Octopus, upon successful Lost Octopus Reporting your loss liability will be reduced to only three hours – which is by far the shortest time in the Asian smart card industry.

Lost-card liability period reduced by half

Octopus operates in an offline mode to ensure swift transactions. To better protect our customers' interests by quickly suspending the use of their Octopus after successful lost card reporting, the company has successfully halved the lost card liability period to three hours. From now onwards, if a Personalised Octopus holder or a user of the Octopus Automatic Add Value Service loses their Octopus, they only need to bear the first three hours of liability after they have dialled the Lost Octopus Reporting hotline (2266 2266) and successfully completed the Lost Card reporting procedure. This arrangement is by far the best lost card liability period amongst similar pre-paid smart cards in Asia.

Personalised Octopus holders and Automatic Add Value Service users are the only groups of customers entitled to the Lost Octopus Reporting Service as their information has been registered for identity verification. So the service does not apply to holders of anonymous cards because no information has been registered for identity verification purposes, and those cards are as easily transferable as cash.

In addition, Octopus has recently launched another customer service enhancement initiative to demonstrate its customer-centric principles.

Instant cash refund arrangement

An instant cash refund arrangement will be made available to holders of Personalised Octopus, Octopus with AAVS and Sold Octopus. Previously, these holders had to return their Octopus to the company through an MTR Customer Service Centre to apply for a refund. With this new arrangement in place, holders of an eligible Octopus with a remaining value of less than HK$500 can get an instant cash refund of the remaining value as well as the HK$50 deposit (if applicable) at any MTR Customer Service Centre. For holders of an Octopus with remaining value of HK$500 or above, please apply for a refund to the company via MTR Customer Service Centre.

Tips for Using Octopus

Octopus handles more than 11 million transactions every day, and to ensure reliable service, a high security technology system is adopted. Here are some tips for using your Octopus.

• If you have more than one Octopus, please don't put them together on the reader - this will avoid duplicate transactions. This also applies to other smart cards such as credit cards, ATM cards and cards for access control.
• Please don't move your Octopus too quickly over the reader. Please put your Octopus on the reader until it shows the transaction amount and remaining value. If the transaction is not completed, please put the Octopus on the reader again until the transaction completes.
• Please don't tamper with your Octopus, such as bend, write on, scratch, tap, cut or paste stickers, photos or crystals, and don't buy an Octopus from any unknown vendor. If your Octopus is damaged, Octopus Cards Limited will deduct HK$30 from the deposit for the card cost.
• To avoid loss, please remember to shred the cancelled Bank Issued Octopus (especially the number part) before you discard the pieces separately.
• Please record your Octopus number and retain any transaction receipts for reference. If you have any questions about a retail transaction, please contact the retail merchant directly. If you need any assistance from Octopus, please call the Octopus Customer Service Hotline on 2266 2222.
• From the fourth quarter of this year onwards, for the convenience of our customers, handy tips are listed on the back of the Standard On-Loan Octopus.

Octopus grows with Hong Kong and continues to provide high quality, reliable services to the citizens.