In message , Paul Corfield
writes
I may be wrong but surely you can see your history if you have an on
line account not just if you have actually undertaken a top up
operation? I have only recently added a "real" PAYG card to sit
alongside my staff one so the normal customer interface for Oyster is
something I have limited experience of.

No you cannot. You can only see the history if you actually top up
online - and I have always topped up at a ticket machine (or a ticket
window if I'm passing and there is no queue).

I tried to find out whether I would be able to see past history if I
topped up yesterday or only future history, but a serious web search
failed to find the answer. Do you happen to know? Since I had topped
up on Friday (because the £10 overcharge had left my balance too low to
finish the day) I didn't really want to put more in TfL's coffers.

I agree it's not worth my time, but a principle is at stake: if the
system is so poor that many people get overcharged, and the victims
don't try to get a refund, the authorities at TfL will have no incentive
to improve things. As it is, of my 29 minutes on the phone, at least 10
were also occupying the time of someone they were paying, so I suspect
that small salary cost will act as a tiny incentive on them to fix the
problems. Against that - Oyster problems have been going some time, and
the problems don't seem to diminish.

If you can remember your journey pattern and are prepared to share it
then people here might be able to assist. The journey info will still
be held on your card (assuming you've not made a further 10 trips) and
an LUL office can print that out for you as can a TfL bus ticket
machine.

I don't have the journey history yet - it takes *48 hours* to get it
emailed, according to the man on the Oyster help line (how stupid is
that, when you can get an instant printout at a TfL station). I suspect
that the error at London Bridge may have been that my card didn't
register on a gate but I got through because it was still open from the
person in front. I have a vague memory of the gates closing rather
promptly behind me, which they don't usually do.

From now on I shall make sure that I only enter a gate which is already
closed, to make sure that if my card doesn't work I will know about it
(there doesn't seem to be any other way of being sure about this). I
realise that If everybody did that it would severely reduce the gate
throughput at peak hours, but that's not my problem.

I also don't understand why the system is so dumb. The sequence of
events for my first problem, with approx times, was:

16:30 Forest Hill entry - recorded ok
17:00 London Bridge NR exit - possibly not recorded
17:05 London Bridge tube entry - recorded ok
17:30 South Kensington tube exit - recorded ok

Even if my exit at London Bridge NR was missed, it should have been
possible for an even slightly intelligent system to work out what
overall journey I was making, and record the correct charge for it.

And I still don't have the faintest idea why, after my first overcharge
of £4 for the unresolved journey, I then got overcharged another £6 when
doing only another two journeys that day, going through only 4 more
gates all at TfL stations.

What? - about 2% of all travellers using magnetic tickets? - if that's
your definition of "many people".

Well that makes many people in total, even if small in percentage terms.
But my sample is of people living outside London, where we have the
choice of a ticket to London Terminals (or Thameslink) plus Oyster
within London, or alternatively a London One-day Travelcard which is all
on a single paper ticket. Almost all of those that I know who have this
choice are still using paper tickets throughout. Some have tried Oyster
and given up, having had problems like mine, others are simply baffled
by the complexities. Many don't even realise that in some circumstances
it would save them a pound or two now and again to use Oyster, but in a
few cases I think it would be more expensive. Working out which is
which takes a lot of time and effort.



--
Clive Page