Just had a phantom charge on my debit card (yesterday, the 13th) from
the Boris Bikes scheme.

Anyone else had this problem, either yesterday or in the past?

-roy

On Dec 14, 7:52*pm, (Roy Badami) wrote:
Just had a phantom charge on my debit card (yesterday, the 13th) from
the Boris Bikes scheme.

Anyone else had this problem, either yesterday or in the past?

I take it you're a member i.e. you've got a key? (As opposed to having
used it as a 'casual user' recently.)

Also, was it a full transaction or just a pre-authorisation? (Some
online banking interfaces also show the latter as 'pending
transactions' or something like that.)

How much was it for? If it was GBP1.00, then it would appear to be for
24-hour access... unless it was possibly a usage charge for hire of up
to an hour (i.e. if you had the bike for longer than 30 mins) - I've
got a GBP1 charge showing on my online account next to "Unbilled
charges", which is fine as I did use a bike for longer than a half
hour, but the blurb seems a bit hazy as to when such charges are
actually billed.

The online Cycle Hire interface certainly was showing 'phantom
journeys' - actually other's usage - a while back in the "Activity
log" section, but this just seemed to be a database muddle as it
didn't affect billing (well I don't think it did). However I've heard
and come across a few things suggesting that there remain some kinks
in the system.

The dedicated 'Boris Bikes' web forum might be helpful too - http://
borisbikes.co.uk/.

In article ,
Mizter T wrote:

On Dec 14, 7:52*pm, (Roy Badami) wrote:
Just had a phantom charge on my debit card (yesterday, the 13th) from
the Boris Bikes scheme.

Anyone else had this problem, either yesterday or in the past?

I take it you're a member i.e. you've got a key? (As opposed to having
used it as a 'casual user' recently.)

Sorry, that was a big vague on my part, wasn't it?

I signed up at the end of November, received my key, activated it
online, and GBP 4 was charged to my Visa Debit card as expected.

I haven't used the service yet, but yesterday (13th) a further GBP 4
was charged to my card. There's nothing new showing in the "activity
log", just a charge showing on my (online) bank statement. I'm pretty
sure it's an actual charge, as preauthorisations don't show up in my
statement, only in the available credit.

The dedicated 'Boris Bikes' web forum might be helpful too - http://
borisbikes.co.uk/.

Yes, I had a quick skim of it and found at least one reference to
someone else receiveing a phantom charge. Haven't dug any deeper yet.

-roy