Peter Frimberley wrote:
On 11 Oct 2006 09:21:53 -0700, "
wrote:

I added on £10 credit to my pay-as-you go card earlier this week at
Fulham BRoadway (the station I had nominated) but made no journey from
that station - and have now discovered that £1 has bee deducted from
my card!

This is outrageous.

If you knew you were going to the station, but also there was a chance
you might not be making a journey from it (a stated requirement of
online manual topup) why did you not just take your £10 note or use
your credit card at one of the ticket machines in the station, and
forget about the online topup?

I don't often have cash on me on Monday mornings, and certainly don't
have time to queue up at ATM and then the ticket machine.

Paying online in advance gives me the security of knowing that a bare
minimum is left to be done on a rushed Monday morning when (as was
indeed the case) a long bus wait means I am in even more of a rush.

Moreover, online top-up allows you to have a record of jouneys online,
which other forms of top-up do not.


When I asked how else I could have credited my card the station
assistant at Bow Road today said that I'd best queue at the station
ticket office when I want to credit pay as you go! Just the very thing
I am trying to avoid (as others have stated)!

Why not use the machines?

See above. Also, I hardly want to be feeding notes into a machine
which may reject them and cause a whole load of hassle.


What a bloody ridiculous system. Why, if the system shows that I have
not "touched out" at any station, does it not refund the £1 initially
debited automatically, say after 2 hours?

Because that would be a fare-dodgers paradise, as you well know if you
would think about it for a second.

Well, the system is hardly failsafe is it?! With that £1 debit, I
could have spent the whole day riding around the Underground with
impunity - just as much of a fare dodgers' paradise.

As for fare-dodging, when I topped up, the gates were open for about 5
or 6 seconds, during which time anyone else could have walked in or out
with impunity.

As an interesting aside, what would have happened if I'd topped up,
then gone through the barrier and immediately left by an adjacent gate,
by touching out? Would my £1 have been debited and refunded as being
an "obvious" non-journey?

Marc.