Does the online system get confused?

Last night my Oyster card balance was £2.65. I bought £5 top-up online to
collect at King's Cross St Pancras this morning and when I did the gate duly
showed my balance on entering as £7.65.

I went to Heathrow where the gate showed my balance on exit as £5.60 and
fare deducted (£2.05).

This was all as expected but going online just now my balance shows as £4.20.

Huh?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 06:57:05
on Thu, 2 Apr 2015, remarked:
Does the online system get confused?

Last night my Oyster card balance was £2.65. I bought £5 top-up online to
collect at King's Cross St Pancras this morning and when I did the gate duly
showed my balance on entering as £7.65.

I went to Heathrow where the gate showed my balance on exit as £5.60 and
fare deducted (£2.05).

This was all as expected but going online just now my balance shows as £4.20.

Huh?

£3.45 is the peak fare, I expect. (£5.10 before the 1/3 off)

Were you travelling close to the end of the peak period.
--
Roland Perry

In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message , at
06:57:05 on Thu, 2 Apr 2015, remarked:
Does the online system get confused?

Last night my Oyster card balance was £2.65. I bought £5 top-up online to
collect at King's Cross St Pancras this morning and when I did the gate
duly showed my balance on entering as £7.65.

I went to Heathrow where the gate showed my balance on exit as £5.60 and
fare deducted (£2.05).

This was all as expected but going online just now my balance shows as
£4.20.

Huh?

£3.45 is the peak fare, I expect. (£5.10 before the 1/3 off)

Were you travelling close to the end of the peak period.

No (10:45 start) and there are no railcard discounts in the peak. Anyway,
the correct deductions and balances were shown by the gates. I make a point
of avoiding old gates that don't give me that information.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
() wrote:

In article ,
(Roland Perry) wrote:

In message , at
06:57:05 on Thu, 2 Apr 2015, remarked:
Does the online system get confused?

Last night my Oyster card balance was £2.65. I bought £5 top-up online
to collect at King's Cross St Pancras this morning and when I did the
gate duly showed my balance on entering as £7.65.

I went to Heathrow where the gate showed my balance on exit as £5.60
and fare deducted (£2.05).

This was all as expected but going online just now my balance shows as
£4.20.

Huh?

£3.45 is the peak fare, I expect. (£5.10 before the 1/3 off)

Were you travelling close to the end of the peak period.

No (10:45 start) and there are no railcard discounts in the peak.
Anyway, the correct deductions and balances were shown by the gates.
I make a point of avoiding old gates that don't give me that
information.

It turns out looking online today that the exit at Heathrow Terminal 5 may
have showed me the correct fare and balance but the system shows it as an
incomplete journey and has charged me £3.45 for it. GOK where that fare
comes from. Incomplete journeys are normally charged more than that I
thought.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Fri, 03 Apr 2015 04:01:01 -0500,
wrote:

It turns out looking online today that the exit at Heathrow Terminal 5
may have showed me the correct fare and balance but the system shows it
as an incomplete journey and has charged me £3.45 for it. GOK where that
fare comes from. Incomplete journeys are normally charged more than that
I thought.

Having looked at a TfL booklet I was sent I can confirm that what has
happened is that you've been charged the entry charge - this is £3.45
for a Railcard discount holder travelling off peak. For whatever
reason your exit did not register so the £1.40 was not added back to
charge you the correct discounted fare of £2.05. It looks to me as if
something happened whereby the gate transaction appeared to work OK
"on the ground" but the data hasn't reconciled itself at the centre
hence your account charge showing what it does.

I doubt you can't readily check but I'd be interested to see what the
actual card balance shows as.

Something to watch for on Tuesday then, when I'll be back at Heathrow.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
() wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Fri, 03 Apr 2015 04:01:01 -0500,
wrote:

It turns out looking online today that the exit at Heathrow Terminal 5
may have showed me the correct fare and balance but the system shows it
as an incomplete journey and has charged me £3.45 for it. GOK where
that fare comes from. Incomplete journeys are normally charged more
than that I thought.

Having looked at a TfL booklet I was sent I can confirm that what has
happened is that you've been charged the entry charge - this is £3.45
for a Railcard discount holder travelling off peak. For whatever
reason your exit did not register so the £1.40 was not added back to
charge you the correct discounted fare of £2.05. It looks to me as if
something happened whereby the gate transaction appeared to work OK
"on the ground" but the data hasn't reconciled itself at the centre
hence your account charge showing what it does.

I doubt you can't readily check but I'd be interested to see what the
actual card balance shows as.

Something to watch for on Tuesday then, when I'll be back at Heathrow.

I had a reply from TfL on Sunday saying "Your application has been
successful and you are due a refund of £1.40", inviting me to nominate where
to collect it. I nominated Heathrow T5 of course, where I arrived this
lunchtime.

I took the precaution of looking at the card balance and journey history on
a ticket machine at T5 before letting it near a gate. It showed the journey
to Heathrow, £2.05 charge and £5.60 balance all correctly. I took the
precaution of photographing the ticket machine screen. When I touched in at
the barrier it told me my balance was £5.60 (and showed the correct amounts
at KXStP). We'll see what Oyster Online has to say later.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
() wrote:

In article ,
() wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Fri, 03 Apr 2015 04:01:01 -0500,
wrote:

It turns out looking online today that the exit at Heathrow Terminal
5 may have showed me the correct fare and balance but the system
shows it as an incomplete journey and has charged me £3.45 for it.
GOK where that fare comes from. Incomplete journeys are normally
charged more than that I thought.

Having looked at a TfL booklet I was sent I can confirm that what has
happened is that you've been charged the entry charge - this is £3.45
for a Railcard discount holder travelling off peak. For whatever
reason your exit did not register so the £1.40 was not added back to
charge you the correct discounted fare of £2.05. It looks to me as if
something happened whereby the gate transaction appeared to work OK
"on the ground" but the data hasn't reconciled itself at the centre
hence your account charge showing what it does.

I doubt you can't readily check but I'd be interested to see what the
actual card balance shows as.

Something to watch for on Tuesday then, when I'll be back at Heathrow.

I had a reply from TfL on Sunday saying "Your application has been
successful and you are due a refund of £1.40", inviting me to
nominate where to collect it. I nominated Heathrow T5 of course,
where I arrived this lunchtime.

I took the precaution of looking at the card balance and journey
history on a ticket machine at T5 before letting it near a gate. It
showed the journey to Heathrow, £2.05 charge and £5.60 balance all
correctly. I took the precaution of photographing the ticket machine
screen. When I touched in at the barrier it told me my balance was
£5.60 (and showed the correct amounts at KXStP). We'll see what
Oyster Online has to say later.

It seems like there's a significant communications problem somewhere between
T5 and TfL Central. Is this possible, Paul?

My wife used her contactless credit card both ways. That worked fine
outwards which I why I know my touch out time which failed to register but
her touch in on the inward journey failed to get through to the central
computer though her exit at King's Cross was OK. In both cases there were no
gate issues such as following or being followed by someone else. She was
charged £5.20 for an unstarted journey instead of £3.10 for which we have
now had to claim a refund.

I see only one refund a month is allowed. With such unreliable
communications is that reasonable?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 09/04/2015 18:17, wrote:
[...]
It seems like there's a significant communications problem somewhere between
T5 and TfL Central. Is this possible, Paul?

My wife used her contactless credit card both ways. That worked fine
outwards which I why I know my touch out time which failed to register but
her touch in on the inward journey failed to get through to the central
computer though her exit at King's Cross was OK. In both cases there were no
gate issues such as following or being followed by someone else. She was
charged £5.20 for an unstarted journey instead of £3.10 for which we have
now had to claim a refund.

I see only one refund a month is allowed. With such unreliable
communications is that reasonable?


I haven't looked at your previous Oyster issue (the subject of this
thread) but I've had zero problems when using contactless. I do avoid
the bi-directional wide aisle gates, particularly if they are locked open.

Did she perchance go through a gate that was locked open?

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Thu, 09 Apr 2015 12:17:17 -0500,
wrote:

In article ,
() wrote:

I took the precaution of looking at the card balance and journey
history on a ticket machine at T5 before letting it near a gate. It
showed the journey to Heathrow, £2.05 charge and £5.60 balance all
correctly. I took the precaution of photographing the ticket machine
screen. When I touched in at the barrier it told me my balance was
£5.60 (and showed the correct amounts at KXStP). We'll see what
Oyster Online has to say later.

It seems like there's a significant communications problem somewhere
between T5 and TfL Central. Is this possible, Paul?

My wife used her contactless credit card both ways. That worked fine
outwards which I why I know my touch out time which failed to register
but her touch in on the inward journey failed to get through to the
central computer though her exit at King's Cross was OK. In both cases
there were no gate issues such as following or being followed by someone
else. She was charged £5.20 for an unstarted journey instead of £3.10 for
which we have now had to claim a refund.

I see only one refund a month is allowed. With such unreliable
communications is that reasonable?

I am not up to date on the precise nature of the comms network for the
ticketing system. I understand it was substantially upgraded and
reconfigured to remove the possibility of a single comms line failure
between any station and the central system. There should always be an
alternative route for data to reach the centre.

Whatever the problem we know it's intermittent as each time only one of two
cards' gate records were missed.

Now it's possible that something else has caused data loss or delay. I
would expect such faults to be known to the customer services centre
or at least the status info could be checked. I also would not expect
the daily transaction record to be closed out if data has not been
received from certain locations - especially for contactless payment
card transactions. If your wife's credit card is registered with TfL
in an account I would expect the missing transaction to be fixable via
the internet via the TfL account. This is what Youtube videos
produced by TfL show is possible.

It is registered on my account so claiming a refund is easy once I realised
what the screen was telling me. I was looking for the 7th April journey
history of which there was none but it was hidden behind a "maybe claim a
refund" (or something like that) message. Only later did I realise I had to
click a little chevron next to the message to find out more and even then it
was easier to find the help pages on claiming a refund than to find the link
to click to actually claim it. After claiming it is in the journey history
with a "we have no record of where you touched in/out" warning.

I do not see how TfL could refuse a refund if it is clear their
equipment is at fault. To refuse would be wholly unreasonable in those
circumstances.

They don't seem to be refusing but they are very coy about the cause of the
fault. Given that it is at Heathrow I fear they are fleecing rather a lot of
tourists who won't realise it's happening to them.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , (Mizter T) wrote:

On 09/04/2015 18:17, wrote:
[...]
It seems like there's a significant communications problem somewhere
between T5 and TfL Central. Is this possible, Paul?

My wife used her contactless credit card both ways. That worked fine
outwards which I why I know my touch out time which failed to register
but her touch in on the inward journey failed to get through to the
central computer though her exit at King's Cross was OK. In both cases
there were no gate issues such as following or being followed by
someone else. She was charged £5.20 for an unstarted journey instead of
£3.10 for which we have now had to claim a refund.

I see only one refund a month is allowed. With such unreliable
communications is that reasonable?

I haven't looked at your previous Oyster issue (the subject of this
thread) but I've had zero problems when using contactless. I do avoid
the bi-directional wide aisle gates, particularly if they are locked
open.

On the way to Heathrow she had a flawless journey on contactless and I had a
problem on Oyster. The common factor in the problems was cards working the
gates as expected at T5 but that not being communicated correctly to the
back office. That is a critical failure for contactless but Oyster sorted
itself out as the system seems to believe what the card tells it.

Did she perchance go through a gate that was locked open?

No, they were all closed but are all wide at T5.

--
Colin Rosenstiel