Yesterday I tried using my Oyster card on National Rail for the first
time. In just 2 NR journeys and 2 tube trips I got at least two
problems. The first unresolved journey (ticket barrier at London Bridge
NR at fault, apparently) I managed to get sorted out at South Kensington
ticket office by merely queuing for 10 minutes, first refund £4.

When finishing the day at King's Cross my balance was again too low, but
was keen to catch a train home so didn't have time to resolve it then.

I assumed that I could sort it out online, but for some ridiculous
reason the journey history isn't available - unless you top up online. I
have no idea whether the past history would have been magically viewable
had I tried to do another top up - nothing explained this, and I had to
nominate a particular station to get the top up. Since I come in on the
Thameslink line and use one of several tube stations as my initial one,
I can't easily specify which station I wanted to use.

So I phoned the Oyster "help" line, which took me another 29 minutes.
I *think* the issue is no resolved, with another refund of around £6.

But I have no idea how the system managed to charge me in total £10
extra for just four journeys.

To get the refund I had to specify the station to pick it up. Then
having said Kings Cross St Pancras I was asked whether NR or TfL section
- this was fairly easy. But having said the tube station I was then
asked whether it was the Northern/Picc/Vict lines gates, or those for
the Circle/Hamm&city/Met lines. This was getting absurd. But
apparently I didn't have to specify whether it was the new Northern
Ticket hall or the old Western one. This is very hard to understand.

I then asked for a journey record to be emailed me - this apparently
takes "up to 48 hours". This is again a ridiculous use of modern
technology. There is no reason why this cannot be provided instantly.

Have TfL taken leave of their senses in implementing Oyster Cards?

If it is going to take me nearly an hour to resolve my problems every
day that I use Oyster, I shall switch back to paper tickets, which
yesterday would have cost about 85p more, but for an hour of my time,
this is not expensive. I can see why there are still long queues at
tube ticket offices, and so many people still using paper tickets.


--
Clive Page