I can tell you from experience that the cards don't last a year. They are very flimsy and they stop working sooner than that. If a card becomes too damaged to read you are supposed to send it in to some MTA address to get a replacement but I've done that and never heard back from them. You can also go to their office in lower Manhattan during business hours and do it in person. Which is okay if you work downtown, but useless otherwise.

Try the station agent next time.

The station agent gave me the prepaid envelope to send the damaged card to the black hole "processing center".

At one year they replace the card for free. Seems like a good thing, so you don't end up with one that falls apart...