If you live in the NYC area, just go to a manned booth and have them transfer the balance of the damaged card onto another one. As long as it can be read by the swipe inside the booth, it can be done.

What you describe is one of the downsides of EasyPay. If you take good care of your card (like my wife does--even though she uses hers more than me) they will mail out a new card shortly before your old one expires and you can keep using the old one until you activate the new one. But if they wear out (and I've had at least 2 or 3 wear out over the years) I think you have to deactivate it to request a new one, and use a different card in the interim. Unless there's some secret replacement method they offer you over the phone (which I'd love to know about for the next time mine wears out).

That works for most metrocards, but not for EasyPay metrocards (EasyPay are the ones that automatically refill from your credit card so you don't have to use the machines/booths to refill). The folks in the booth can't do anything with an EasyPay card.

Interesting to re-read this old thread. I subsequently had the same thing happen to me as gfunkdave a couple of years ago, for exactly the same reason, but I did not recall this thread at the time. I called, did not have to wait on hold long, and got a competent and straightforward agent who knew exactly what the problem was, and even had "comebacks" for my complaints - "Why didn't you contact me when the card was declined?" "You opted out of email communications" (To be fair, I think I just didn't opt in, and don't even know if that was an option when I first signed up for this). "How can I avoid this in the future?" "Just put a backup payment method in your account online".

Of course a couple of months ago, my card was suspended again - my Transit Check card balance fell after purchasing an Amtrak ticket and a 10-trip LIRR pass for the summer season, and coincidentally I had cancelled the credit card I put in for backup.

So I knew how to fix it (I got the email notification as well!), but it was definitely annoying having to wait 24-48 hours for the card to re-activate.

And yes - agree that the agents in the booths can't do diddly squat with these cards (even when the message at the turnstyle is "see agent" when the card is deactivated).

The issue is the read-write process the MetroCard uses. When you see "Swipe again at this turnstile" the amount of money has been deducted from your card but the write process didn't finish to the card with the time and turnstile number. The only difference with a booth is the way the card reader is a dip like a bus instead of swipe so the read-write is more secure and may work better. Also, turnstiles only update the station computer and station computer only updates the mainframe every 6 minutes (that's where you get the 18 minutes for multiple use) when everything is working correctly and the booth doesn't have the "Computer Down" on the dry marker board.
Most station agents after a single attempt will just hand you the form to mail in the card http://web.mta.info/metrocard/pdfs/form.pdf
I go with the debit card for my Transit Check and eat the dollar if I want to replace a card that isn't expiring.