Just read in the NYT about a recent court ruling on whether or not "selling swipes" from an Unlimited Rides subway card is a misdemeanor. We often buy the unlimited ride cards when visiting NY, but I thought there was a time limit on swiping....i.e.--there must be a few minutes between swipes. That is why DH and I always buy individual cards. Could we have been "sharing" a card? Just curious.

I believe the card allows a new swipe after 18 minutes

I think people may be selling swipes at the end of their ride. For example, you swipe to enter the subway. You ride the train to work, a 20-minute ride. You plan to head straight to work, so won't need to use you card for a few hours. After exiting the turnstile, you could opt to stand by the turnstile and sell a swipe to someone entering since the 18 minutes have passed.

One of the opposition lawyers is quoted: "you are allowed to hand it around to your girlfriend; you are allowed to even swipe a strangers at no charge........they allow a certain sharing of the card."

This is the quote that confused me. I didn't know one could "hand it around".

I think the judge meant that there's no law that says you can't "give" someone a free ride on an unlimited Metro card. It's true that you can only swipe it after a certain number of minutes (I fell prey to that recently when I had to run back into the office to pick up something I'd forgotten after I'd already gone through the turnstile ... it was originally 9 minutes but is now more like 15 or 16).

You aren't allowed to "share" an unlimited Metro card, and the MTA rules strictly forbid it. It's one thing to "give" a ride to someone; it's another to sell and profit from that quirk in the system. But the argument the judge was making is that there are other laws on the books that cover this crime, not petty larceny, which is the crime this particularly guy was charged with. The judge was certainly not saying that selling rides from an unlimited Metrocard is ok ... so it was really a very technical analysis of the law and the specific way people were being charged by the police.

Also, I think the judge was simply mistaken. You can only hand around a pay-per-ride card. MTA absolutely allows people to share those (I believe it's 4 people). But it's rather stupid misstatements of fact like that that confuses people in these kinds of rulings.

Thanks, Doug. That was what I thought....you can share a pay-per-ride card. Those simply have a certain dollar amount loaded and it really doesn't/shouldn't matter who uses the value. I just couldn't understand how people could stand at a turnstyle and sell rides from an unlimited card. Doesn't sound like a very good business....selling one ride at a discounted price every 15-20 minutes. That's a pretty low return on time invested if you ask me.

You have to keep in mind that most of the guys offering swipes are using stolen Metrocards or cards that have been discarded with a half-day or a full-day left on them.

But it can be quite profitable to swipe a monthly card every 15 minutes for 2 dollars. You only have to make 50 swipes to start making a profit, and when you're doing 4 swipes an hour, you can do that in less than 3 or 4 days, leaving the rest of the month free for profit. It's not a high-paying job, but it's probably better than panhandling.

But as you might imagine, these are petty criminals who have usually NOT bought the card they are swiping.

There are also the guys who have jacked a Metrocard to make it work like an unlimited card by bending it in a certain way that takes advantage of a quirk in the swiping mechanism. If you see a guy frantically, swiping a card time after time, it's because he's trying to jack the system. I don't know if the MTA has ever solved this problem, though they have attempted to over the years.

The scammers I've seen have/buy more tnan one unlimited card. They rotate them so that they can swipe in several people on different cards and then wait it out till the 18 minute reset.


"One of the opposition lawyers is quoted: "you are allowed to hand it around to your girlfriend; you are allowed to even swipe a strangers at no charge........they allow a certain sharing of the card."
This is the quote that confused me. I didn't know one could "hand it around"."


It IS certainly legal to lend an unlimited card to another person--you can use it one day (or in the morning) and give it to me the next day (or to use in the evening). That has alway been the case.

The gray area is : can you swipe someone into the system (for free--taking money is definitely illegal) and then walk away with the card and use it yourself (18 minutes later, or at another station)? Unlike Washington DC's Metro system, you do not have to keep a card with you to exit the system, nor is there anywhere in the MTA's regulations that seem to prohibit this kind of use.

I've often thaought that if some of these scammers and fraudsters applied their creativity to legitimate pursuits, they could make a fortune.