Oyster refunds
 

In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message , at 10:54:34 on Mon, 23
Mar 2015, Neil Williams remarked:
I don't recall being able to get top-up receipts at the point of
purchase, and have had to rely on my Credit Card statements to get
reimbursed.
While I am a bit surprised at this, surely the way to get reimbursed
is by getting a journey record printout and claiming for what you
travelled, rather than what you put on the card?
AIUI the problem is that the ticket offices where you would get the
printout are closing, and the machines don't have the facility to
print journey history.

Doesn't strike me as a difficult feature to add.

There's two aspects - providing an extension to the user interface,
designing a printout that will fit on a slew of ticket blanks, and
arranging for the machine to be able to query the full journey
history rather than just what's on the card. Then a software update
to thousands of machines.

Shere (I think) ticket machines used to print receipts on ticket blanks.
Then they fitted tally roll printers, presumably because they worked out it
was cheaper.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Oyster refunds
 

In message , at 16:35:44
on Mon, 23 Mar 2015, remarked:
Shere (I think) ticket machines used to print receipts on ticket blanks.
Then they fitted tally roll printers, presumably because they worked out it
was cheaper.

It's all terribly complicated. All the machines print "collection
receipts" (for ToD purchases) on ticket stock. If you buy a ticket from
them, some will print the Credit Card receipt on ticket stock, and
others will print it on a tally roll.

Unless it's one of the three machines at Ely for several months recently
where the tally roll printer was broken.

--
Roland Perry

Oyster refunds
 

On 23/03/2015 22:22, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:35:44
on Mon, 23 Mar 2015, remarked:
Shere (I think) ticket machines used to print receipts on ticket blanks.
Then they fitted tally roll printers, presumably because they worked
out it was cheaper.

It's all terribly complicated. All the machines print "collection
receipts" (for ToD purchases) on ticket stock. If you buy a ticket from
them, some will print the Credit Card receipt on ticket stock, and
others will print it on a tally roll.

When I've occasionally come across the 'smartcards / Oyster saves paper'
line spouted as a benefit, I think of the times I've come across great
stacks of discarded card receipts on standard ticket stock at TVMs in
the London area (in the ticket collection bin, sometimes piled up on top
of the machine, or in an untidy mess on the floor), a quick examination
of which shows many are receipts for PAYG topups.

Of course, with contactless payment now live many people will have
switched to just using their credit/debit card directly. That I think
can legitimately be said to be a paper saver.


Unless it's one of the three machines at Ely for several months recently
where the tally roll printer was broken.

Oyster refunds
 

On 2015-03-25 11:15:36 +0000, Mizter T said:

When I've occasionally come across the 'smartcards / Oyster saves
paper' line spouted as a benefit, I think of the times I've come across
great stacks of discarded card receipts on standard ticket stock at
TVMs in the London area (in the ticket collection bin, sometimes piled
up on top of the machine, or in an untidy mess on the floor), a quick
examination of which shows many are receipts for PAYG topups.

Bought a ticket from the EMT machine at St Pancras the other week, and
I was pleased to note that it spat out only one piece of card - the
ticket - and no receipts. I think that's the way to go provided a
receipt remains offered on request (by a fairly obvious button) for
those who do reconcile their card spending in that manner. (I see
little point in doing that these days as a miskeyed amount is
infinitessimally unlikely now nothing is hand-written)

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

Oyster refunds
 

In message , at 11:15:36 on Wed, 25 Mar
2015, Mizter T remarked:
Shere (I think) ticket machines used to print receipts on ticket blanks.
Then they fitted tally roll printers, presumably because they worked
out it was cheaper.

It's all terribly complicated. All the machines print "collection
receipts" (for ToD purchases) on ticket stock. If you buy a ticket from
them, some will print the Credit Card receipt on ticket stock, and
others will print it on a tally roll.

When I've occasionally come across the 'smartcards / Oyster saves
paper' line spouted as a benefit, I think of the times I've come across
great stacks of discarded card receipts on standard ticket stock at
TVMs in the London area (in the ticket collection bin, sometimes piled
up on top of the machine, or in an untidy mess on the floor), a quick
examination of which shows many are receipts for PAYG topups.

Of course, with contactless payment now live many people will have
switched to just using their credit/debit card directly. That I think
can legitimately be said to be a paper saver.

Unfortunately I'm not yet ready to transfer my company accounts to
paperless (and I'm not sure HMRC is either, on my behalf).

Obviously, you can't rely on the paperless originals to still be
available in 7 years time - and in many cases not even in 7 months or 7
days. I'm also not aware of any middleware I could use to aggregate all
the different sources into one "set of accounts".

Printing-as-pdf and saving locally works for some sites, but I've still
get several where it's a Print-Screen and paste into Paint, and Save
from that.

So much simpler, and reliable, in all cases to print to a bit of paper,
which has the advantage you can later staple your used tickets (etc) to
it. Scanning my used tickets and somehow "attaching" them to the pdfs
seems like a non-starter.
--
Roland Perry

Oyster refunds
 

In message , at 12:29:30 on Wed, 25
Mar 2015, Neil Williams remarked:
When I've occasionally come across the 'smartcards / Oyster saves
paper' line spouted as a benefit, I think of the times I've come
across great stacks of discarded card receipts on standard ticket
stock at TVMs in the London area (in the ticket collection bin,
sometimes piled up on top of the machine, or in an untidy mess on the
floor), a quick examination of which shows many are receipts for PAYG topups.

Bought a ticket from the EMT machine at St Pancras the other week, and
I was pleased to note that it spat out only one piece of card - the
ticket - and no receipts. I think that's the way to go provided a
receipt remains offered on request (by a fairly obvious button) for
those who do reconcile their card spending in that manner. (I see
little point in doing that these days as a miskeyed amount is
infinitessimally unlikely now nothing is hand-written)

What I find is that transactions - curiously almost always refunds -
don't happen. The latest was Parcelforce, who were due to refund me
"within 24hrs" for a pickup that I cancelled. And it was only because I
had a bit of paper on my desk - the one they'd have signed to say the
pickup had been done - that I remembered to check a couple of weeks
later.

So I had to phone them up, which didn't work because it's all online,
and then I did get the refund through about a day later.

The stories we hear here, about Oyster mistakes, are in very much the
same camp - unless you know to claim because of some printed evidence on
the table, you can be out of pocket.
--
Roland Perry

Oyster refunds
 

In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message , at 12:29:30 on Wed, 25
Mar 2015, Neil Williams remarked:
When I've occasionally come across the 'smartcards / Oyster saves
paper' line spouted as a benefit, I think of the times I've come
across great stacks of discarded card receipts on standard ticket
stock at TVMs in the London area (in the ticket collection bin,
sometimes piled up on top of the machine, or in an untidy mess on the
floor), a quick examination of which shows many are receipts for PAYG
topups.

Bought a ticket from the EMT machine at St Pancras the other week, and
I was pleased to note that it spat out only one piece of card - the
ticket - and no receipts. I think that's the way to go provided a
receipt remains offered on request (by a fairly obvious button) for
those who do reconcile their card spending in that manner. (I see
little point in doing that these days as a miskeyed amount is
infinitessimally unlikely now nothing is hand-written)

What I find is that transactions - curiously almost always refunds -
don't happen. The latest was Parcelforce, who were due to refund me
"within 24hrs" for a pickup that I cancelled. And it was only because
I had a bit of paper on my desk - the one they'd have signed to say
the pickup had been done - that I remembered to check a couple of
weeks later.

So I had to phone them up, which didn't work because it's all online,
and then I did get the refund through about a day later.

The stories we hear here, about Oyster mistakes, are in very much the
same camp - unless you know to claim because of some printed evidence
on the table, you can be out of pocket.

Well said!

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Oyster refunds
 

On 2015-03-25 13:45:46 +0000, Roland Perry said:

What I find is that transactions - curiously almost always refunds -
don't happen.

I've never had that. Except once, when it was a malfunction of one of
the priority machines at Luton Airport, which gave me a receipt but I
was never charged for it.

The latest was Parcelforce, who were due to refund me "within 24hrs"
for a pickup that I cancelled. And it was only because I had a bit of
paper on my desk - the one they'd have signed to say the pickup had
been done - that I remembered to check a couple of weeks later.

I add notes to my calendar to check whether companies initiate a refund or not.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

Oyster refunds
 

In message , at 17:55:16 on Wed, 25
Mar 2015, Neil Williams remarked:
What I find is that transactions - curiously almost always refunds -
don't happen.

I've never had that. Except once, when it was a malfunction of one of
the priority machines at Luton Airport, which gave me a receipt but I
was never charged for it.

The latest was Parcelforce, who were due to refund me "within 24hrs"
for a pickup that I cancelled. And it was only because I had a bit of
paper on my desk - the one they'd have signed to say the pickup had
been done - that I remembered to check a couple of weeks later.

I add notes to my calendar to check whether companies initiate a refund or not.

There was a time when I was travelling more than I am now, where I had
to set up a specific scheme to try to track the refunds. Lots of them,
due to the Icelandic ash cloud. But also a knock-on effect because I was
trying to combine those affected flights with rail journeys south of the
channel. Without the flights, I also needed as many refunds for the
connecting trains as the rules allowed.
--
Roland Perry

Oyster refunds
 

On 25/03/2015 12:29, Neil Williams wrote:

On 2015-03-25 11:15:36 +0000, Mizter T said:

When I've occasionally come across the 'smartcards / Oyster saves
paper' line spouted as a benefit, I think of the times I've come
across great stacks of discarded card receipts on standard ticket
stock at TVMs in the London area (in the ticket collection bin,
sometimes piled up on top of the machine, or in an untidy mess on the
floor), a quick examination of which shows many are receipts for PAYG
topups.

Bought a ticket from the EMT machine at St Pancras the other week, and I
was pleased to note that it spat out only one piece of card - the ticket
- and no receipts. I think that's the way to go provided a receipt
remains offered on request (by a fairly obvious button) for those who do
reconcile their card spending in that manner. (I see little point in
doing that these days as a miskeyed amount is infinitessimally unlikely
now nothing is hand-written)

It's not just about miskeyed amounts though - card fraud often starts
with test purchases of small amounts of money, which might not get noticed.