In article , d ()
wrote:

On Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:04:51 +0100
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 08:30:28 on Thu, 12 Apr
2012, d remarked:
Believe it or not, with £55 million unclaimed Oyster credit, my wife
has been doing her bit in the other direction by having a negative
balance of £4.50 for over a year!

Presumably as oyster cards get more expensive to buy then the negative
balance allowed gets proportionaly larger? I'm sure the max negative
balance used to be something like 2 quid when oysters cost 3 quid.

Unless it's a "Visitor card" then the £3/£5 is a deposit, with the card
itself remaining the property of TfL.

Semantics. The card is de facto the property of the person who paid for
it. The notes in your wallet are legally the property of the government
but I bet you wouldn't give it over to a minister if he asked for it.

No matter. There was no question of "allowing" any overdraft. The charge was
applied after the last use in the Oyster system before last weekend.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at 00:08:38
on Thu, 12 Apr 2012, Paul Corfield remarked:
Looking at the journey history I can't for the life of me make out how
the negative balance occurred. It shows two entries for 30th March,

Do the ticket machines show journey history from a year ago?

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/termsandconditions/12321.aspx

Says they only hold data for eight weeks, and are "changing the
system" to keep it for two years [classic mission creep, but I'd
welcome being able to see history older than 8wks]. 16th of Feb is
the oldest I can see today, on their online journey history.

Or does the *card* keep details for longer than their database does,
in which case why isn't the record on the card valid for doing
refunds after their 8 week timeout period?

If you read on it says:

"Oyster card customers can view details of the last eight journeys made on
their card at London Underground and London Overground touchscreen ticket
machines or by requesting a print out at a ticket office."

This card had't been used 8 times before last weekend. I saw journeys from
earlier than March last year.

King's Cross St Pancras and Westminster, with a charge of £4.40 for
the first

If £4.40 was the relevant "maximum fare" for a touch in at KXSP tube
at the time, then it indicates the card didn't touch-out at
Westminster.

iirc they have some fairly slow gates there, and it's possible to
inadvertently "follow through" the person in front, with one's own
touch not registering.

When I'm travelling Oyster PAYG I always pause and count to three
before passing through a gate after another passenger, to avoid this
possibility. No doubt Paul will cringe at the thought but three
seconds on my journey time is nothing compared to how long it would
take to get a refund.

But charging £4.40?

Of course, if using an Oyster season or a paper ticket, a pause isn't
necessary.

and £6.50 for the second. Her journeys were KXSP to Westminster and
back again.

I think Paul has the answer for that one, below.

I can't think how this happened. Both are fully gated stations which
would only have opened the gates if they registered the card in and out.
It had more than enough credit for the two £1.90 fares which should have
been charged. We plan to ring the helpline tomorrow to try and sort it
out.

More than 8 weeks ago. Good luck!

Write to us, they said. I've done so.

Getting the details isn't helped by the lack of facilities for getting
printed journey history. It's easy to see on a ticket machine but
printouts are only available from ticket offices. On the day we only
passed KXSP (several times). It either had its usual long queues or was
closed. Norbiton isn't an LU station and East Putney's ticket office was
closed whenever we passed it. The card wasn't registered as it's hardly
over-used.

Thoughts?

Kings Cross is an OSI. Did the other half use the Oyster Card to get
through the FCC gates for the train to Cambridge on the way home?
Therefore the system will have expected a subsequent exit and not
seeing one the max fare will have remained deducted rather than having
value added back on. That's the most plausible explanation I can come
up with.

It wouldn't be an issue the other way as I assume a paper ticket was
used to exit FCC and then the Oyster card used to start at the tube.

But there should be two journey history entries if the OSI was invoked,
surely?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Thu, 12 Apr 2012 06:51:30 -0500
wrote:
This card had't been used 8 times before last weekend. I saw journeys from
earlier than March last year.

Did you buy the card after that date? If so its probably a 2nd hand card
that hasn't been wiped. If not then perhaps a duplicate card id has got
into the system. If you see other unexpected journeys pop up on the card
then it'll be the latter.

B2003

In article , d ()
wrote:

On Thu, 12 Apr 2012 06:51:30 -0500
wrote:
This card had't been used 8 times before last weekend. I saw journeys
from earlier than March last year.

Did you buy the card after that date? If so its probably a 2nd hand card
that hasn't been wiped. If not then perhaps a duplicate card id has got
into the system. If you see other unexpected journeys pop up on the card
then it'll be the latter.

No. My wife got it new. She just doesn't use it much. We don't live in
London and don't go there often. It's in a Mastercard sponsored holder. When
were they current?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 06:51:30
on Thu, 12 Apr 2012, remarked:
Or does the *card* keep details for longer than their database does,
in which case why isn't the record on the card valid for doing
refunds after their 8 week timeout period?

If you read on it says:

"Oyster card customers can view details of the last eight journeys made on
their card at London Underground and London Overground touchscreen ticket
machines or by requesting a print out at a ticket office."

This card had't been used 8 times before last weekend. I saw journeys from
earlier than March last year.

Right, so the card *does* store (the last 8 journeys) without time
limit.

King's Cross St Pancras and Westminster, with a charge of £4.40 for
the first

If £4.40 was the relevant "maximum fare" for a touch in at KXSP tube
at the time, then it indicates the card didn't touch-out at
Westminster.

iirc they have some fairly slow gates there, and it's possible to
inadvertently "follow through" the person in front, with one's own
touch not registering.

When I'm travelling Oyster PAYG I always pause and count to three
before passing through a gate after another passenger, to avoid this
possibility. No doubt Paul will cringe at the thought but three
seconds on my journey time is nothing compared to how long it would
take to get a refund.

But charging £4.40?

The prices last March are probably in this publication:

http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/defau...ry%202011%20fa
res%20revision%20PDF.pdf

£4.50 is a Z123456 fare, so quite plausible as the penalty for an
unresolved fare.

But not £4.40

I presume there's no touch-out recorded for that leg?

Of course, if using an Oyster season or a paper ticket, a pause isn't
necessary.

and £6.50 for the second. Her journeys were KXSP to Westminster and
back again.

I think Paul has the answer for that one, below.

I can't think how this happened. Both are fully gated stations which
would only have opened the gates if they registered the card in and out.
It had more than enough credit for the two £1.90 fares which should have
been charged. We plan to ring the helpline tomorrow to try and sort it
out.

More than 8 weeks ago. Good luck!

Write to us, they said. I've done so.

Getting the details isn't helped by the lack of facilities for getting
printed journey history. It's easy to see on a ticket machine but
printouts are only available from ticket offices. On the day we only
passed KXSP (several times). It either had its usual long queues or was
closed. Norbiton isn't an LU station and East Putney's ticket office was
closed whenever we passed it. The card wasn't registered as it's hardly
over-used.

Thoughts?

Kings Cross is an OSI. Did the other half use the Oyster Card to get
through the FCC gates for the train to Cambridge on the way home?
Therefore the system will have expected a subsequent exit and not
seeing one the max fare will have remained deducted rather than having
value added back on. That's the most plausible explanation I can come
up with.

It wouldn't be an issue the other way as I assume a paper ticket was
used to exit FCC and then the Oyster card used to start at the tube.

But there should be two journey history entries if the OSI was invoked,
surely?

Don't call me Shirley. But I suppose you are correct, with the
postulated touch-in at Kings Cross suburban needing to be listed.

I can't see £6.50 as the fare for anything, either.
--
Roland Perry

On Thu, 12 Apr 2012 08:30:16 -0500
wrote:
In article , d ()
wrote:

On Thu, 12 Apr 2012 06:51:30 -0500
wrote:
This card had't been used 8 times before last weekend. I saw journeys
from earlier than March last year.

Did you buy the card after that date? If so its probably a 2nd hand card
that hasn't been wiped. If not then perhaps a duplicate card id has got
into the system. If you see other unexpected journeys pop up on the card
then it'll be the latter.

No. My wife got it new. She just doesn't use it much. We don't live in
London and don't go there often. It's in a Mastercard sponsored holder. When
were they current?

No idea. I guess that means some card id's have got mixed up assuming that
they store the journeys on a central database and not on the card itself.

B2003

In message , at 15:06:34 on
Thu, 12 Apr 2012, Paul Corfield remarked:

Fair comment Colin - I'd missed that. The only "logical" explanation
is that for some crazy reason you've ended up with two incomplete
journeys - one off peak and the other peak time.

Have you got a link to the "cost" of uncompleted journeys - I couldn't
see either of Colin's figures on the regular 2011 price list (linked to
earlier).
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 15:23:58 on
Thu, 12 Apr 2012, Paul Corfield remarked:

Your question about the deduction values has made me go back and check
what the entry charges were for PAYG for the 2011 revision. Charges
can vary by adult / child, tariff, time of day

Understood. And the relevant fares tables make this quite clear.

and if there is a discount entitlement on the card.

We are looking for 10p/20p discounts, which doesn't seem very likely.

£6.50 was the Adult peak entry charge for both the TfL and NR tariff.

£4.40 was the Adult off peak entry charge for the NR tariff. The TfL
tariff charge was £4.30.

Is there a document which has these numbers in, and explains why (for
example) the £4.30 charge isn't £4.50 (the Z1-6 fare)?

This therefore gives a tiny clue that the
£4.40 charge was incurred as part entering where the system assumes
you're in NR land rather than TfL land. Goodness knows how KX
gatelines / validators are assigned to either NR or TfL.

I'd have expected the SPILL ones and KX Suburban ones to be NR, and the
remainder TfL (at the time; now there are more NR ones).

Which leaves the old "Kings Cross Thameslink" entrance, which was
previously more of a NR station but is now entirely TfL. I wonder if the
gates weren't changed?
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 15:49:50 on Thu, 12 Apr
2012, Roland Perry remarked:
£6.50 was the Adult peak entry charge for both the TfL and NR tariff.

£4.40 was the Adult off peak entry charge for the NR tariff. The TfL
tariff charge was £4.30.

Is there a document which has these numbers in, and explains why (for
example) the £4.30 charge isn't £4.50 (the Z1-6 fare)?

Cancel that...

In the document I found earlier it says (para 1.8)

"As a result of these changes, the PAYG peak 1-6 Train-Tube fare
increases from £6.00 to £6.50 and the off-peak fare from £4.30
to £4.40. These two fares will continue to determine the peak
and off-peak entry and exit charges for all rail PAYG journeys."

What I still can't understand, though, is why none of these figures
appear in the table on page 11 (which claims to have all the peak and
off-peak, TfL, National Rail and through services).

http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/defau...ary%202011%20f
ares%20revision%20PDF.pdf

--
Roland Perry

In message , at 16:28:06 on
Thu, 12 Apr 2012, Paul Corfield remarked:
In the document I found earlier it says (para 1.8)

"As a result of these changes, the PAYG peak 1-6 Train-Tube fare
increases from £6.00 to £6.50 and the off-peak fare from £4.30
to £4.40. These two fares will continue to determine the peak
and off-peak entry and exit charges for all rail PAYG journeys."

What I still can't understand, though, is why none of these figures
appear in the table on page 11 (which claims to have all the peak and
off-peak, TfL, National Rail and through services).

http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/defau...ary%202011%20f
ares%20revision%20PDF.pdf

the Mayor's Decision document never includes all the permutations of
fares and charges. It only includes the main fares or prices which
most of the public need.

Not sure why that would be a problem for you to comprehend.

I'd expect the "penalties" to be the same as one of the actual fares.
They seem to be 10p-50p different.

--
Roland Perry