R550 lost on account of expired card!

I found to my shock at the end of February that my Gautrain card would no longer work and was told that it had expired with R550 still on it. At the Hatfield station I was told that they could not refund me and I had to buy a new card and put more money on it. I promptly complained on the Gautrain website, giving them my card number. Nothing happened. I raised the issue again last week and finally received an email this morning stating "The claim was rejected by the system as it is a Gautrain expired card." How come the card did not have anything on it to indicate it was going to expire? This must be *******!