elyob wrote:
I couldn't find the Oyster card points at Olympia last night (probably
because I was fuelled by 10 pints of Great British Ale) ... I honestly did
go back to take a look. Anyway, when I got to my destination I spoke to an
underground bloke who let me through with the words "You've saved yourself a
lot of money". So, my question is, how much is the fine for not scanning in
& out and only doing it on the way out. I guess maximum fare, but what is
that?

Thanks

What's not quite clear from your post is whether or not you touched
your Oyster card on a reader on your way out (i.e. when you spoke to
the member of staff at your destination station)?

Technically if you have enetered a station without a valid ticket or
having validated your Oyster card (as you did) you are liable to a £20
penalty fare. However you'll only be the recipient of this dubious
honour if your ticket or Oyster card is checked en-route by a Revenue
Protection Inspector, which is not that common an event when travelling
on the Underground (especially late in the evening).

Instead if you don't touch in, but instead only touch out when leaving
the system (i.e. either go through some automatic gates or touch your
card on the reader) then London Underground, in it's Oyster card
publicity (and in this Ask Oyster - http://tinyurl.com/7fftw) states
that "you are likely to pay more than you need for your journeys".

This would seem to suggest that if you don't touch in and touch out on
each trip then you'll get charged the maximum possible fare of £3.50,
or £2.00 after 7pm and at weekends [1]. The logic being that unless
you explicitly inform the system of your start and end points (by
touching in and out), then you could've travelled through all six zones
and you should be charged as such.

Whilst I've heard of this happening to people, when I've forgotten to
both touch in or out I've found that I've been charged the lowest
possible fare from the station (as opposed to the highest). Indeed I
did this very recently and only been charged £1.10, as opposed to
£3.50. If you do this you'll notice that it's recorded on your card as
an 'Incomplete Journey' if you view your journey history on a ticket
machine.

Perhaps Oyster readers at some stations are programmed to charge the
full whack, whilst others are more leniant?


[1] I am aware that there are higher possible fares for journeys
including Zones A-D on the Met, but I think it's unlikely that you'd be
charged these as a penalty for failing to touch-in or touch-out -
unless you only touched-in or touched-out at one of the Zone A-D
stations.