asdf wrote:
Apparently, from 25th September the charge for an incomplete Oyster
pre-pay journey starting or ending at the NR termini at Marylebone,
Euston, Liverpool Street and Fenchurch Street will be increased from
£1.70 to £5.00.

Furthermore, LU ticket offices will be unable to remove the £5 penalty
- if you receive one in error, you will need to phone the Oyster
helpline. Presumably this means that no reimbursement will be
available to holders of unregistered Oyster cards.

So if you're using pre-pay on NR to or from the above stations, be
extra careful, especially if your card is unregistered. Make sure the
person in front of you has passed through the gates and the gates have
closed before touching your card on the reader. If you have trouble
getting through the gates and a staff member at the side gate asks you
to touch your card on the reader there, I would refuse unless you're
sure the £5 charge would not be applied. If you're travelling to/from
an ungated station, don't forget to touch in/out - remember it's
easier to forget if you're travelling in a group.

Very interesting. Out of interest where did you pick up on this news
from?

The logic behind this change is pretty obvious - some people had become
aware that Oyster Pre-Pay was used for some NR routes into these London
termini, and also that an Oyster card would let people out of the
network through automatic gates at a station even if they hadn't
touched in when they enetered the network.

Whilst some passengers might not have touched-in at Pre-Pay NR stations
where they started their journey either through forgetful omission or
intentionally so as to save money, I reckon others had realised that
they could travel in from all over London on *non Pre-Pay NR routes*
without a ticket, starting at a non-gated station, and get through the
barriers at the London terminus at a cost of just £1.70 (i.e. less
that what a legitimate printed single/return might cost). Given that
during the evening the barriers may well be open anyway they might end
up with a free ride into town, and quite possibly a free ride out later
on that night as the barriers may well be open for the return journey.

Additionally the logic applies in the reverse direction. If travelling
from Liverpool Street to Walthamstow Central, why touch out when it
will charge you £2.50 when if you *don't* touch out it'll only cost
£1.70. This will mess up any Pre-Pay capping for that day, but if
you're just doing a couple of single journey that day that doesn't
matter. Plus if you're a fare evader you may well just want to get
through the gates at Liverpool Street and onto your train to Enfield
Town, for example.


I hope that this change will be clearly publicised both at the London
termini and on NR Pre Pay routes so as to remind honest but possibly
forgetful passengers that they must remember to touch-in at their
starting station, especially if it doesn't have automatic gates.