On Aug 9, 12:06*am, "Peter Smyth" wrote:

"Scott" wrote:

On Sun, 8 Aug 2010 14:11:42 -0700 (PDT), CJB
wrote:

Oyster Card top-up users double charged

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-10907906

TfL is advising people to check their bank accounts after topping up
Some passengers have been double charged when topping up their Oyster
Cards, BBC London has learnt.

A Freedom of Information request shows Transport for London (TfL) has
refunded £40,000 this year to customers who have been over-charged by
faulty machines.

The information also shows there have been 2,421 complaints in 2010
about being double charged when adding credit to the electronic travel
smartcard.

TfL is advising people to check their bank accounts after topping up.

'Monitor continuously'

TfL explained that it could not be aware of any over-charging until
the issue was reported by a passenger.

The Freedom of Information requested information shows the machines at
London Bridge, Victoria, Liverpool Street and King Cross stations led
to the highest number of complaints.

Shashi Verna, from TfL, said: "We monitor the system continuously to
make sure the problems are not becoming bigger, and there is no
evidence they are becoming bigger.

"But we constantly check the screens on ticket machines and how the
ticket machines are set up to minimise these problems."

I'm not sure 'rip-off' is the correct term as a rip-off implies intent
to over-charge and I am sure TfL has no such intent. *This sounds like
a technical problem in a system that offers huge benefits to the
travelling public, which I am sure TfL are working to resolve.

The story is not clear about exactly what is happening. It could be that
people are being charged £10 for £5 of credit (which would be a serious
fault). Or it could be people are pressing the wrong button on the
machine by mistake and buying £10 of credit when they actually only
wanted £5.

Without any further information, it's hard to get a handle on what
this story might be about.

I do just wonder whether it is our old friend, the Oyster out-of-
station-interchange maximum journey time-out issue though... (no, I
can't bear to explain it again!).

On 9 Aug, 00:25, Mizter T wrote:
On Aug 9, 12:06*am, "Peter Smyth" wrote:





"Scott" wrote:

On Sun, 8 Aug 2010 14:11:42 -0700 (PDT), CJB
wrote:

Oyster Card top-up users double charged

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-10907906

TfL is advising people to check their bank accounts after topping up
Some passengers have been double charged when topping up their Oyster
Cards, BBC London has learnt.

A Freedom of Information request shows Transport for London (TfL) has
refunded £40,000 this year to customers who have been over-charged by
faulty machines.

The information also shows there have been 2,421 complaints in 2010
about being double charged when adding credit to the electronic travel
smartcard.

TfL is advising people to check their bank accounts after topping up.

'Monitor continuously'

TfL explained that it could not be aware of any over-charging until
the issue was reported by a passenger.

The Freedom of Information requested information shows the machines at
London Bridge, Victoria, Liverpool Street and King Cross stations led
to the highest number of complaints.

Shashi Verna, from TfL, said: "We monitor the system continuously to
make sure the problems are not becoming bigger, and there is no
evidence they are becoming bigger.

"But we constantly check the screens on ticket machines and how the
ticket machines are set up to minimise these problems."

I'm not sure 'rip-off' is the correct term as a rip-off implies intent
to over-charge and I am sure TfL has no such intent. *This sounds like
a technical problem in a system that offers huge benefits to the
travelling public, which I am sure TfL are working to resolve.

The story is not clear about exactly what is happening. It could be that
people are being charged £10 for £5 of credit (which would be a serious
fault). Or it could be people are pressing the wrong button on the
machine by mistake and buying £10 of credit when they actually only
wanted £5.

Without any further information, it's hard to get a handle on what
this story might be about.

I do just wonder whether it is our old friend, the Oyster out-of-
station-interchange maximum journey time-out issue though... (no, I
can't bear to explain it again!).-

The TV was on in the background, so I should have concentrated better,
but I couldn't work out whether the story was about being overcharged
when topping up or being overcharged for journeys. I suspect the
latter reported as if the former, by people who have a vague idea of
"buying tickets" at a particular price and can't interpret
"overcharge" in any other way.

On Aug 9, 9:31*am, MIG wrote:
On 9 Aug, 00:25, Mizter T wrote:





On Aug 9, 12:06*am, "Peter Smyth" wrote:

"Scott" wrote:

On Sun, 8 Aug 2010 14:11:42 -0700 (PDT), CJB
wrote:

Oyster Card top-up users double charged

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-10907906

TfL is advising people to check their bank accounts after topping up
Some passengers have been double charged when topping up their Oyster
Cards, BBC London has learnt.

A Freedom of Information request shows Transport for London (TfL) has
refunded £40,000 this year to customers who have been over-charged by
faulty machines.

The information also shows there have been 2,421 complaints in 2010
about being double charged when adding credit to the electronic travel
smartcard.

TfL is advising people to check their bank accounts after topping up.

'Monitor continuously'

TfL explained that it could not be aware of any over-charging until
the issue was reported by a passenger.

The Freedom of Information requested information shows the machines at
London Bridge, Victoria, Liverpool Street and King Cross stations led
to the highest number of complaints.

Shashi Verna, from TfL, said: "We monitor the system continuously to
make sure the problems are not becoming bigger, and there is no
evidence they are becoming bigger.

"But we constantly check the screens on ticket machines and how the
ticket machines are set up to minimise these problems."

I'm not sure 'rip-off' is the correct term as a rip-off implies intent
to over-charge and I am sure TfL has no such intent. *This sounds like
a technical problem in a system that offers huge benefits to the
travelling public, which I am sure TfL are working to resolve.

The story is not clear about exactly what is happening. It could be that
people are being charged £10 for £5 of credit (which would be a serious
fault). Or it could be people are pressing the wrong button on the
machine by mistake and buying £10 of credit when they actually only
wanted £5.

Without any further information, it's hard to get a handle on what
this story might be about.

I do just wonder whether it is our old friend, the Oyster out-of-
station-interchange maximum journey time-out issue though... (no, I
can't bear to explain it again!).-

The TV was on in the background, so I should have concentrated better,
but I couldn't work out whether the story was about being overcharged
when topping up or being overcharged for journeys. *I suspect the
latter reported as if the former, by people who have a vague idea of
"buying tickets" at a particular price and can't interpret
"overcharge" in any other way.

The story in the original post clearly states that some people have
been charged twice when topping up at machines, there is no mention of
other problems with charges for actual journeys.

On Aug 9, 9:41*am, Andy wrote:

On Aug 9, 9:31*am, MIG wrote:

On 9 Aug, 00:25, Mizter T wrote:

On Aug 9, 12:06*am, "Peter Smyth" wrote:
[snip]
The story is not clear about exactly what is happening. It could be that
people are being charged £10 for £5 of credit (which would be a serious
fault). Or it could be people are pressing the wrong button on the
machine by mistake and buying £10 of credit when they actually only
wanted £5.

Without any further information, it's hard to get a handle on what
this story might be about.

I do just wonder whether it is our old friend, the Oyster out-of-
station-interchange maximum journey time-out issue though... (no, I
can't bear to explain it again!).-

The TV was on in the background, so I should have concentrated better,
but I couldn't work out whether the story was about being overcharged
when topping up or being overcharged for journeys. *I suspect the
latter reported as if the former, by people who have a vague idea of
"buying tickets" at a particular price and can't interpret
"overcharge" in any other way.

The story in the original post clearly states that some people have
been charged twice when topping up at machines, there is no mention of
other problems with charges for actual journeys.

It was just the phrase "double charged" in the BBC news online piece
(linked to/ quoted upthread) that made me ponder, but as you say the
story seems fairly clear that this is something to do with topping up
at ticket machines.

On Aug 9, 9:31*am, MIG wrote:

On 9 Aug, 00:25, Mizter T wrote:

On Aug 9, 12:06*am, "Peter Smyth" wrote:
[snip]
The story is not clear about exactly what is happening. It could be that
people are being charged £10 for £5 of credit (which would be a serious
fault). Or it could be people are pressing the wrong button on the
machine by mistake and buying £10 of credit when they actually only
wanted £5.

Without any further information, it's hard to get a handle on what
this story might be about.

I do just wonder whether it is our old friend, the Oyster out-of-
station-interchange maximum journey time-out issue though... (no, I
can't bear to explain it again!).-

The TV was on in the background, so I should have concentrated better,
but I couldn't work out whether the story was about being overcharged
when topping up or being overcharged for journeys. *I suspect the
latter reported as if the former, by people who have a vague idea of
"buying tickets" at a particular price and can't interpret
"overcharge" in any other way.

Having just looked at the BBC article again it does appear to be an
issue about topping up at the ticket machines - these excepts are
fairly clear in suggesting that:

---quote---
The information also shows there have been 2,421 complaints in 2010
about being double charged when adding credit to the electronic travel
smartcard.
[snip]
Shashi Verna, from TfL, said: "We monitor the system continuously to
make sure the problems are not becoming bigger, and there is no
evidence they are becoming bigger.

"But we constantly check the screens on ticket machines and how the
ticket machines are set up to minimise these problems."
---/quote---

I did wonder whether there was any way in which auto-topup could
somehow have been muddled up with this, e.g. people getting hit with
the max fare charge 'double whammy' have auto-topup enabled, but that
doesn't really make much sense as they would only be topped up once
when their PAYG balance fell below £5 and their nominated card would
only be charged once - the except above is pretty clear in suggesting
that there's been an issue with the actual ticket machines.

So whilst I appreciate that various different issues can get muddled
together inadvertently, it doesn't appear to be a case of that
happening in this instance (hence our old friend the Oyster OSI
maximum journey time-out issue hasn't come out to play here!).