oyster card maximum fare

[matt9b]

I touched in and then decided not to travel to where I was going. So I touched out again. I was charged a maximum fare for what oyster considers an "incomplete" journey. The station staff treated me with disrespect, like I was a criminal, and told me to call the number on the back of the oyster card. They said they can't solve the issue at the station. I called 0845 the number. The computer voice said "transferring you to a customer representative" but then cut me off. I called again. Again I was cut off. I called a third time, but again, the line cut me off. I tried from another phone line, the same problem.

 

I spoke to the station staff again, they said "nope. nothing we can do."

 

I'm an honest pay as u go oyster card user (I use pay as you go because I don't trust them with my bank details), and just the other day I was let in and out for free by accident, but went to the counter to pay anyway. Yet they treated me like a criminal and accidentally made me over-pay anyway. But I said nothing about it to avoid hassle.

 

Now I'm sick of the inadequate system and the way the staff handle customers, and want to get this sorted. I want my refund.

 

But I can't get through to staff, and I can't get through to the phone line. I tried emailing twice on their website, but I've waited 9 days and still not heard back.

 

Surely there must be rules to stop a huge company like this acting like this?

 

Any ideas?

[matt9b]

okay, i see i'm not going to get any answers on here.

 

I'm going to try my best never to use TFL again. If at all possible, I will drive, walk, or cycle, i dont care how long it takes

[PGH7447]

Hi welcome to the cag, Im afraid that I do not know th answer to your issue, but I would expect someone to come along shortly,

 

I would not consider no reply after only 45 minutes to be counted as not getting any help, people do not stay logged on all day and pop in from time to time so give it a chance

[matt9b]

Okay I'll wait longer cheers...

 

Just posted on another forum and everyone seems to think I should just let it go and stop moaning. Must say I was a bit surprised by this.

 

Every day seems to be a fight... woke up and my partner hit me accidentally. got in the shower, then got chucked out the bathroom as my housemate needed the loo. Got half way to work and had severe stomach pains, had to call in sick and rush home to the bathroom, at which point, I get to deal with the tube station staff to persuade them to let me out of the station.

[PGH7447]

We all get days like that:D

 

but then something come along that makes us smile:rolleyes:

[storageguy]

Okay I'll wait longer cheers...

 

Just posted on another forum and everyone seems to think I should just let it go and stop moaning. Must say I was a bit surprised by this.

 

quote]

 

I have to agree on this, its a daily occurance for us living in london - we will never get anywhere with TFL on this.

[green_and_mean]

Why do you need to give Tfl your bank details? I use Oyster every day with no problems and no one has ever asked for my bank details. The Oyster system handles millions of transactions a year connecting retailers, buses, trams and tubes to an integrated ticketing network that rarely ever goes wrong its something London should be proud of but as usual its easier to knock it. Obviously station staff cannot just stick credits on an Oyster card so why bother even wasting their and your time? I have used the help line twice after some confusion over connecting between tram and overground at Wimbledon ended up with me being charged for a journey I had a travelcard for, both times the fee was put back on my card within days.

[Minder_Mob]

I needed to change lines at kings cross yeasterday (as i do everyday) but due to overcrowding I was diverted by TFL staff. I was forced to exit through a set of open barriers and then had to touch-in again to get back to the right line.

 

When I got to my destination I saw I had been charged £6.

£4.00 for an incomplete journey and £2.00 for a completed one.

 

This unfair 'incomplete journey' charge happens to me quite a lot. About once a month (as finsbury park has no barriers on the exit and often the machines don't work). Previously I havn't bothered to chase it up / don't have the time - but this time I thought i should...

 

I asked at the station office, and they told me they could not refund the money, I had to phone the oyster help-line.

 

I called the oyster helpline and they told me to call back after 24 hours for the journey to be on the system.

I waited, called again and was put in a queue. After 10 mins I got through to an operator who had no problem refunding the £4.00, but told me to wait on hold while he did some 'administration'. After another four minutes or so, I asked if the call was a free-phone line. He said no, it costs 'about 20 or 30 pence a minute'' (and even more for mobiles).

 

This made me start thinking...

The 0845 number is a revenue shared number, so TFL make more money the longer you are on the phone.

 

I know they can refund the money at the ticket office (I have seen them do it before) but the TFL staff are obviously encouraged not to, forcing people to call the help-line.

They seem to have also removed the facility to 'print oyster usage' from the ticket machines, making it harder to document any unfair charges.

 

As this is quite a regular occurance, I asked the guy on the help-line if there was any other / faster / cheaper way to get re-embersed unfair charges.

He said no.

I asked to speak to his manager.

He said they didn't have a manager. I would have to write a letter.

 

So basically, it seems TFL can unfairly fine you without even notifying you of the transaction, and then earn money whilst you question it through a revenue-shared phone line.

 

Is that actually criminal?

[darth vader]

Well ticket machines have never had an option to print out journey details, you can get the display on screen but not print. The ticket office machines can and do give you a print out if you ask and proove your id due to data protection.

 

They used to be able to amend oyster journey details but due to proven passenger fraud they have updated the software so you now have to go via oyster help desk. People were doubling out behind someone then going to ticket office and claiming charge be refunded after touching in, by doing this they paid zero for journey. They were caught on cctv and the problem was growing. So blame your fellow travellers for you ringing the help line.

 

Even though Finsbury park has no barriers there are 4 readers on the walls at each exit and at top of spiral stairs leading to mainline so there is no excuse not to touch in or out there asb they also have signs above the walkways telling you to touch out and pointing to readers. So even if 1 didnt work there are 3 others to use.

[Minder_Mob]

Thanks for your reply Darth Vader, but I think you are slightly missing the point.

 

‘Blame your fellow travelers’ is neither a coherent or judicious solution, and is exactly the kind of response that will antagonise the honest fare paying customer. I don't think any business, not even TFL, would officially take that line…

 

TFL can only get away with this kind of thing because it has a monopoly on London public transport. There is no other choice. This is why sites like this are set up - to protect the consumer when they have no other options.

 

The way that TFL automatically fines it’s customers without notifying them is comparable to unfair bank charges – it’s just that oyster is a more recent invention and a real discussion of its problems hasn’t yet gathered momentum.

 

The fact is this problem is a design / software infrastructure issue that can be solved.

 

For example, the fines don’t have to be deducted immediately but could be stored and paid when the card is next ‘topped up’. This way the user would at least be aware they have been charged and can argue the point before the money is actually transferred.

 

The following article looks at the software failure aspect of the oyster system in some detail:

The Oyster Gotcha - Software Reality

 

 

The other objection I have to your response is your assumption that it was my fault for incurring charges. You say there is ‘no excuse not to touch in or out’.

If I were to simply forget to touch in or out I would have much less problem paying the fine.

 

In reality, the times I have been fined leaving Finsbury park have all been technical problems.

 

Once I can only assume was during a power cut when there were no lights on in the station and none of the machines worked.

Another time it must have been a hardware error because all the machines read ‘out of order’ (or something like that).

And there were other countless times I tapped ‘out’ and it registered as ‘in’. This seemed to happen every time I travelled home from my girlfriend’s house, so there must have been some software / technical glitch regarding that particular journey. (And yes I did ‘tap in’ because they have barriers at that station).

 

It happened again the other night at Bethnal green when (contrary to what the guy on the gate told me) it turned out the trains on the central line had been suspended. I was charged £1 for just entering and exiting the station. Now I have to decide whether it is worth calling the help-line, which will probably cost more than £1 on my phone bill.

 

If you take into account the 2.67 million other people who use the tube, TFL must be making huge amounts of money from these unfair charges.

[yus]

I have also got an annoying "incomplete journey" on my oyster card. I only come to London occasionally. I didn't find the incomplete journey until I came back to London over 2 months later and topped up my card on a ticket machine. I was told by the ticket office staff to ring the oyster helpline to sort it out. I called the helpline the next day. The operator told that they could only refund a charge within 8 weeks. Unfortunately my case had already passed the time frame. I said I wanted to complain. The operator told me write to the address on the back of oyster card (oyster card services). I did write a letter to the address to request a refund. Four weeks have passed now since I sent the letter, but I haven't received any response from them. Does anybody have any idea about if the oyster card services would answer my letter or how long it could take to get a reply? If I can't eventually get the feedback, what can I do next to complain the oyster card services to somewhere else?

 

I also sent an email about this issue via the My Oyster account but no reply either.

 

I know £4 (actually £2.5 above the right charge) is not a big amount. However, it's unfair to a customer. I want to get it corrected.

 

Thanks.

[yus]

I receive Tfl's response to my refund request today. They refuse to refund on the basis of 8 week's limit. The letter says

 

"After eight weeks the individual journeys are dissociated from your Oyster card and cannot be restored."

 

I don't accept this excuse. In fact I got a statement showing all journeys including the incomplete one over 12 weeks from the ticket office at a tube station. Tfl is ridiculous. They just want to grab money from passengers by any means.

 

Can I send a further complaint against Oyster card services to somewhere else ?

[wildcherry]

My Journey from Hell

Recently I was traveling home on the London Over-ground line from Crouch hill to Acton and part way through my journey was stopped by one of the transport for London revenue collectors at Gospel Oak.

The Station at Crouch Hill is tiny – there are no barriers. I touched in at the bottom of the stairs leading onto the platform and the oyster touch in read that I had insufficient funds. So I walked 50m or so to the ticket machine (which is located on the same platform) and topped up my card. (The single journey itself is about £1.10 so I put £3 on). Went back to the touch-in (at least this is what I remember) touched in – sat on the platform and waited for the train.

When I got to Gospel Oak (to get to Acton you have to change branches) I was stopped by one of the transport for London revenue collectors. She scanned my oyster card and printed up a record of my journey that indicated I had put money on my oyster card at the barrier-less platform prior to my journey but had either forgotten to touch in a second time or I had touched in but my oyster card had miss-read. In either case I was liable for a penalty fare of £50.

I offered to pay for the single journey (as my card had not deduced money for that journey) but refused to accept the penalty fine on the grounds that it was unfair and accepting the fine would infer guilt.

A few of the individuals involved hinted that I would have at least a 50% chance of getting my money back if I accepted the fine (i.e. not pay for the single journey but make a single journeys worth of contribution towards the fine). I found this unacceptable. The accompanying officer expressed a great deal of sympathy for my position as it seemed blatantly clear to all involved that I had certainly not intended to travel without paying but my refusal to accept the fine left him with no alternative but to, very reluctantly, arrest and caution me for fare evasion.

Now, if I was told that I had a reasonable chance of fighting the fine – why did I refuse to accept it I hear you ask?

Well. I’ve been traveling in London for 16years and since the implementation of the oyster system I’ve been caught out at least twice in the last two years. The first time (a similar but admittedly not as brazenly unjust as the second) I appealed against it in writing, took the appropriate cause of action and received a letter explaining, “We can not be held responsible for the intentions of our customers”. In laymen’s terms this means: even if the oyster card doesn’t function properly or miss-reads – even if its absolutely clear that an innocent member of the public has fallen victim to a faulty system, in their view that individual is just as guilty as someone who jumps over barriers, has NO card, no means and no intention of paying.

If there is a petition for unfair and unjust penalty fines due to oyster cards – sign me up. If anyone knows of such a petition please let me know.

[Camdenite]

Thanks Matt9b for raising what I'm fast-realising is a cash-cow for TFL. I dread to think of the amount of journeys where I've had similar circumstances to yourself and just "given up" trying to get the money credited.

 

My favourite bugbear is barriers that can't cope with a volume of passengers and so you never know if you've been correctly admitted or not. You only find out at the beginning of the next journey you take when you've been hammered for the maximum charge.

 

Another Oyster rumour I'd like clarification on:

 

Do Pay As You Go cards "expire" after two months if not used, irrespective of whether there is credit on them or not? Anecdotal evidence certainly suggests that the case.