On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 19:09:20 +0100, Paul Corfield wrote:

I've had a look at the training material. It is very clear that where
there is a system problem (e.g. reader is not working, card problems or
there was an emergency evacuation or something else in LU's control)
that card resetting at the ticket office will be permitted. Where
someone is simply not validating because they can't be bothered / forgot
/ whatever (i.e. in their direct control) then that will NOT be dealt
with at the ticket office. Only a call to the Oyster helpline will
suffice.

OK, it's good to know that we won't be sent through the helpline
rigmarole through no fault of our own.

The rules relating to charges and card resetting are also changing.

If you think about why the change is being made then there is a logic to
this approach. The whole point is to get people to play by the rules and
to do what they are supposed to do. If you make it too easy to get round
the rules how will people ever learn to play by the rules? If people
keep getting charged £4 and have to go to extra effort to deal with the
helpdesk perhaps they will think twice before doing it again. Where the
problem is LU's fault then the customer is dealt with straight away -
that sounds like a decent deal to me.

I'm still undecided on whether it's a good idea for TfL to treat all
their customers as naughty children who must be punished. Perhaps it
would be better to allow, say, 2 fixes of user errors per card at
ticket offices before they have to start calling the helpline. I can't
help thinking "one bitten, twice shy" will apply, but not in the way
intended - people will just be put off using Oyster and hence public
transport.

If I can summon up the mental stamina I might try to knock together a
summary post of the key points from this change. It is quite involved
and there are differences for Oyster card holders with Travelcards on
their cards and those purely on adult rate PAYG. Would this be
appreciated?

dons flak jacket and hides in corner

Note also that there is going to be a big publicity campaign about this
so more detail will be in the public domain shortly.

I for one would very much appreciate a summary. Whilst it's good that
there will be a publicity campaign, the information may be somewhat
simplified, so having it from the source would be very helpful. I do
hope you don't take any criticism of the new policies personally...