E-residence cards are still not being accepted by Arriva bus inspectors, according to irate expatriates facing a constant identity problem.

“This can’t go on any longer. We were told it would stop but it’s still the same. Why should I perennially be discriminated against just because I don’t look Maltese?” Alison Miles, 22, told Times of Malta.

Ms Miles, a Welsh woman living in Malta, claims she was shouted at and ridiculed by an Arriva bus inspector who would not accept her e-residency card as a form of identification.

She was forced to leave the bus after refusing to pay an Arriva fine.

Commuters are obliged to present a recognised form of identification to qualify for discounted resident fares on Arriva buses. Earlier this year, the Government began issuing e-residency cards to replace the ‘Alien’ ID cards previously provided to non-Maltese residents.

However, several frustrated card holders had raised concerns that their new documents were not being accepted.

An Arriva spokesman had subsequently issued a reply, apologising for the administrative error and assuring the situation had been resolved. Despite this, commuters are insisting that the problem has continued. Patricia Graham, a spokeswoman for a collective of frustrated expats, said her own daughter had been a victim of an e-residency card mishap.

“My daughter is a minor, but that didn’t stop a bus inspector from forcing her to leave a bus in the heart of Msida at 8.45pm. What kind of person would do that to a young girl?” she asked.

The bus inspector would not recognise her daughter’s card and issued her with a €20 fine and told her to get off when she could not pay, Ms Graham claimed.

A similar case published in a letter to Times of Malta last week prompted a sympathetic reader to offer to finance legal proceedings against Arriva.

Alan and Angela Lister described an exchange with an Arriva inspector who would not accept their cards in place of the standard senior citizen card, kartanzjan.

“The cards clearly state ‘60+’ but the bus inspector just kept shouting at us, causing a stir on the bus. We were forced to pay a fine since there was no reasoning with the man,” Ms Lister said, adding that dozens of calls to the company’s customer care centre had proved fruitless.

Arriva did not reply to questions sent by this newspaper.