much snippage

The 'max cash fare' wasn't part of the system originally, but PAYG users
quickly discovered the benefits of only touching in at one end of a journey,
so that loophole got closed pretty quickly...

Paul S

The "benefit" for me was that I paid the correct fare without having
to get off the train and touch in/out at the point where I crossed
into the area covered by my paper travelcard. *Now I get ripped off if
I don't go through that ridiculous exercise.

I have to say that if I regularly travelled outside the zones of my
Travelcard (on Oyster PAYG routes) I would just get my Travelcard on
Oyster.

It's still not the easiest thing in the world if you are south of the
Thames. I noticed recently that a major station like Lewisham has
only just started offering Oyster in the last few weeks, despite being
on the DLR (apart from a single machine that was often out of order).
In the period referred to, Oyster was even less available than it is
now.

When the machine is out of order, one doesn't want to spend fifteen
minutes finding a shop and missing trains, one just goes to the
counter for a paper ticket. Oyster stops are not always on the way to
the station.

My main point was that the extent of not touching in/out, before the
punitive rates were brought in, is inferred to be proof of fraud,
which is a totally false assumption.

I never touched in/out at boundary stations, but I always paid the
correct fare. For example, I got on at Acton Town when I had a zone 1
-2 travelcard and didn't choose to jump out at Turnham Green. No
fraud was committed and the correct revenue was collected.

(The stuff about surveillance is interesting and worthy of a longer
read and separate thread, because I've referred to it in the past, but
it wasn't in my bonnet at this point.)