On 13/04/2012 14:06, wrote:
Journey history from a ticket machine shows the day of the week but not the
year. The day of the week made it clear which year my wife's 30 March
entries came from. So not hard to work out the year.

Well this one doesn't show day of the week. As far as I can reproduce
it, the first entry on the printout is:
13/11 11:59 Bus Boarding Route 507 £0.80

The fare is, I think, the one applying in 2011 as I have a National
Railcard discount loaded on to my Oyster Card.

Further on I have another one that puzzles me, this says
29/12 14:54 Rejected Entry (Code 21) Covent Garden £0.00

I wasn't in London then either, and have no idea how you get a "Rejected
Entry". Fortunately that didn't result in a charge. I'm coming to the
view that there must be some data corruption going on. I can't check
these old entries online, of course, as that only allows you to ask for
the last 8 weeks, and only one week at a time.

--
Clive Page

On 13/04/2012 11:52, Roland Perry wrote:
It doesn't even make sense for it to be "within two weeks of the end of
the 8 weeks", unless they are secretly keeping everything for 10 weeks
so they can sort problems out.

It doesn't make much sense. Here is their reply to my query:

quote
Oyster card journey history is held for a period of eight weeks. After
eight weeks, the information is removed from the Oyster card and kept
only for statistical analysis. It is not possible to reconnect the card
and the journey history. Regrettably I’m unable to investigate further
any overcharge which occurred on or before February 2012 as this is
beyond the eight week period Transport for London (TfL) can hold journey
data pertaining to individual customers’ accounts. The eight week period
was felt sufficient for our needs whilst not infringing on customers’
rights of privacy and complies with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Our Conditions of Carriage state that, any claims of this nature must be
contested within 14 days of the journey in order for a refund to be
considered. To download a copy of our Conditions of Carriage please
visit:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...nuary-2012.pdf
/quote

--
Clive Page

In article , (Clive Page)
wrote:

On 13/04/2012 14:06, wrote:
Journey history from a ticket machine shows the day of the week but not
the year. The day of the week made it clear which year my wife's 30
March entries came from. So not hard to work out the year.

Well this one doesn't show day of the week. As far as I can
reproduce it, the first entry on the printout is:
13/11 11:59 Bus Boarding Route 507 £0.80

Are you referring to the printout or what shows on screen?

The fare is, I think, the one applying in 2011 as I have a National
Railcard discount loaded on to my Oyster Card.

There are no railcard discounts on /bus/ fares!

Further on I have another one that puzzles me, this says
29/12 14:54 Rejected Entry (Code 21) Covent Garden £0.00

I wasn't in London then either, and have no idea how you get a
"Rejected Entry". Fortunately that didn't result in a charge. I'm
coming to the view that there must be some data corruption going on.
I can't check these old entries online, of course, as that only
allows you to ask for the last 8 weeks, and only one week at a time.

If you use the custom selection feature you can get more than one week at a
time online.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 13/04/2012 20:39, wrote:
There are no railcard discounts on /bus/ fares!

Aren't there - since I haven't had to pay for bus fares for the last few
years, I simply didn't know. In that case the fare of 80p looks very
much below current levels.

If you use the custom selection feature you can get more than one week at a
time online.

Yes, I see that now. It still doesn't get back as far as the printout I
got at the end of March from a ticket office.

My guess is that both these odd entries must date back a few years, and
somehow have got stuck on my Oyster Card record. If so that's really
confusing.

Even so, TfL have stated that one must claim for refunds within 14 days,
so it does seem to be important to check one's Oyster card at least
every two weeks to make sure there is nothing unexpected there. It
hasn't altered my preference for using paper tickets whenever possible.

--
Clive Page

In article , (Clive Page)
wrote:

On 13/04/2012 20:39, wrote:
There are no railcard discounts on /bus/ fares!

Aren't there - since I haven't had to pay for bus fares for the last
few years, I simply didn't know. In that case the fare of 80p looks
very much below current levels.

If you use the custom selection feature you can get more than one week
at a time online.

Yes, I see that now. It still doesn't get back as far as the
printout I got at the end of March from a ticket office.

My guess is that both these odd entries must date back a few years,
and somehow have got stuck on my Oyster Card record. If so that's
really confusing.

Even so, TfL have stated that one must claim for refunds within 14
days, so it does seem to be important to check one's Oyster card at
least every two weeks to make sure there is nothing unexpected there.
It hasn't altered my preference for using paper tickets whenever
possible.

They haven't replied to me. It's not clear how one checks an unregistered
Oyster card if one is charged after leaving London and don't return with it
for over a year.

Paper tickets are not an option for limited journeys when staying in London
overnight. And cash fares are twice as expensive or more.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 18:21:21 on Fri, 13 Apr
2012, Clive Page remarked:
I can't check these old entries online, of course, as that only allows
you to ask for the last 8 weeks, and only one week at a time.

You can ask for any range of dates (up to 8wks obviously)- there's a
drop down menu.

But it's quite fiddly (and almost impossible on a smartphone) and as
you've "discovered" quite well hidden.

--
Roland Perry

In message , at 18:25:11 on Fri, 13 Apr
2012, Clive Page remarked:
Quote
The eight week period was felt sufficient for our needs whilst not
infringing on customers’ rights of privacy and complies with the Data
Protection Act 1998.

They seem to be in the process of reconsidering this, and extending it
to two years. One of the interesting things about DPA in circumstances
such as this is the time period that is deemed appropriate for keeping
information like this is normally 'three billing periods'. So if it was
for some kind of utility with a monthly billing period it would be three
months, and if billed quarterly it would be nine months.

This linkage to the billing period is a result of the way in which
people look at their bills and complain, coupled with an expectation
that you might be able to complain about things that happened in prior
billing cycles, but not indefinitely.

[The situation was altered for the telecoms industry, post 9/11, by the
introduction of laws mandating various "Data retention" periods, which
trumps DPA.]

For PAYG Oyster there isn't really an equivalent "billing period" but
one might invent a pseudo-billing-period of a week, and then allow
complaints up to three weeks (then maybe a week to resolve them), after
which point there's no DPA "necessity" for the data to be held any
longer. Except they keep it for eight weeks, not four.

Our Conditions of Carriage state that, any claims of this nature must
be contested within 14 days of the journey in order for a refund to be
considered. To download a copy of our Conditions of Carriage please
visit:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...age-january-20
12.pdf
/quote

Such a simple system - it needs 53 pages of T&C, and that doesn't
include any fares tables!!!

Anyway, at the bottom of page 48, it mentions complaining within 28
days. (The expression "14 days" does not appear in the document
anywhere).

Irrespective of your specific issues with the bus fare, I think it's
worth you complaining in writing that they have a serious staff training
issue, and should investigate to see if others have been mistakenly
fobbed off in the same way.

ps So it seems to me the eight weeks arises from those four weeks, plus
four more to carry out their investigation.
--
Roland Perry