On Jan 7, 11:12*pm, eastender wrote:
Am I missing something in the storm today over the £58m of so that
Oyster users are 'overcharged'? I can't see anything saying what the
default position should be for people who fail to touch out. There's not
been any barriers on most of the DLR in any case.

E.

I think it's the wrong scandal, as usual, given that it is usually
possible to avoid, with a bit of alertness.

No focus on all the people who are charged when they do touch in and
out correctly, but hit timeout issues.

No focus on the outrageous cash fares, which might as well be called
penalty fares for using cash, and are at the same rates.

No focus on the reduced accessibility, delays and overcrowding
resulting from the way that people are channelled in order to be able
to touch in and out. (Down my way, examples are closing the useful
exit at Brockley, forcing people to queue to walk up stairs and jam
into a narrow bridge, and not installing a reader at one of the most
popular exits at Lewisham, forcing people to jam dangerously into a
cramped area at the other end of a subway where barriers have been
shoehorned in.)

Not enough focus on the hiking and withdrawal of caps, putting up
fares by over 70% for some people (although it was raised a while
back).

"MIG" wrote in message

On Jan 7, 11:12 pm, eastender wrote:
Am I missing something in the storm today over the £58m of so that
Oyster users are 'overcharged'? I can't see anything saying what the
default position should be for people who fail to touch out. There's
not been any barriers on most of the DLR in any case.

E.

I think it's the wrong scandal, as usual, given that it is usually
possible to avoid, with a bit of alertness.

No focus on all the people who are charged when they do touch in and
out correctly, but hit timeout issues.

I had a case recently where there was a signal failure on the route
home, which severely delayed numerous trains (at least a dozen) on the
Picc and District. They eventually got the trains moving again, and I
got to my home station over an hour later than I'd have expected. I
touched out correctly, and guessing that I'd have been timed out, I went
to the ticket machine and confirmed that I had indeed been charged
2x£4.30 for the journey, rather than the £2.40 it should have been. I
suspect most other pax wouldn't have thought to do this. I went straight
to the ticket office, which had someone in it, who instantly agreed that
I was due a full refund, but said he couldn't do it immediately as the
office was officially closed by then.

I hoped the system would automatically cancel the overcharge (after all,
it had all the data to do so), but of course it didn't. I couldn't find
a direct way of reporting this on the TfL Web site, so used the
complaint option. A couple of days later I got an apology email, but no
refund. I eventually found an open ticket office without a long queue,
and after some discussion, persuaded the lady that I was due a refund.
After lots of button pushing, she managed to get one of the overcharges
refunded. I then tried the Oyster helpline, which was distinctly
unhelpful. Only when I reminded the operator that the call was probably
being recorded did he suddenly decide to offer the refund I was owed. It
still took a long discussion with his supervisor to sort it out.

I was only so persistent because I was peeved -- the relatively trivial
amount of money involved certainly didn't warrant so much effort -- and
I suspect that very few of the others affected that night would have
even bothered to try. So the net effect is that TfL probably netted
several thousand pounds of Oyster penalty fares that evening, thanks to
its unreliable signalling and inability to get the trains moving again
quickly. So what's the incentive for TfL to fix its wonky systems, given
that it would lose money by doing so?

On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 11:47:36AM -0000, Recliner wrote:

I had a case recently where there was a signal failure on the route
home, which severely delayed numerous trains (at least a dozen) on the
Picc and District. They eventually got the trains moving again, and I
got to my home station over an hour later than I'd have expected. I
touched out correctly, and guessing that I'd have been timed out, I went
to the ticket machine and confirmed that I had indeed been charged
2x£4.30 for the journey, rather than the £2.40 it should have been. I
suspect most other pax wouldn't have thought to do this. I went straight
to the ticket office, which had someone in it, who instantly agreed that
I was due a full refund, but said he couldn't do it immediately as the
office was officially closed by then.

And of course if you were at a National Rail station there's nothing that
could have been done anyway, because Oyster still isn't properly
implemented there, so you'd have to either use TfL's premium rate phone
line or maybe make a pointless journey (at your own expense) to a TfL
station.

And people wonder why I still don't use Oyster.

--
David Cantrell | Hero of the Information Age

Sobol's Law of Telecom Utilities:
Telcos are malicious; cablecos are simply clueless.

"David Cantrell" wrote in message
k
On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 11:47:36AM -0000, Recliner wrote:

I had a case recently where there was a signal failure on the route
home, which severely delayed numerous trains (at least a dozen) on
the Picc and District. They eventually got the trains moving again,
and I got to my home station over an hour later than I'd have
expected. I touched out correctly, and guessing that I'd have been
timed out, I went to the ticket machine and confirmed that I had
indeed been charged 2x£4.30 for the journey, rather than the £2.40
it should have been. I suspect most other pax wouldn't have thought
to do this. I went straight to the ticket office, which had someone
in it, who instantly agreed that I was due a full refund, but said
he couldn't do it immediately as the office was officially closed by
then.

And of course if you were at a National Rail station there's nothing
that could have been done anyway, because Oyster still isn't properly
implemented there, so you'd have to either use TfL's premium rate
phone line or maybe make a pointless journey (at your own expense) to
a TfL station.

And as I went on to point out, the helpline was less than helpful, and
visiting another TfL ticket office only got me half the refund owed.
They really do go out of their way to make it difficult to get back the
excess charges they've helped themselves to.