London Banter - View Single Post

[email protected] · March 5th 14, 10:37 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Tue, 04 Mar 2014 18:56:19 -0600, wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

I ended up with a very peculiar double charge last weekend. I was
travelling from West Croydon to Stratford via Canada Water. I have a
Z23 Travelcard so expected to get a 2 zone extension charge which was
duly deducted at Stratford. I popped into Westfield and was in time
to get the GA train to T Hale. That is within the availability on my
ticket so no charge should have been made.

However on checking my Oyster account I saw a second charge made on
exit from T Hale. I have had a refund after a chat with the Oyster
help line. The bizarre thing is that the system joined the two
journeys together despite Stratford not being an OSI and then
proceeded to charge me as if I've gone via Zone 1 so it also ignored
the pink validator touch at Canada Water. Even sillier is that there
is an alternative fare for West Croydon to T Hale (NR) via Canada
Water which is the same fare as Stratford.

I have allowed the help line to send the journey details from my
account to the Oyster team so they investigate whatever Gremlin there
is the system that can join journeys together where there is no OSI
and where there is a valid non Z1 fare in the system!

It would be you to get caught!

The chap on the Help Desk gathered pretty quickly that I knew what I
was talking about :-)

While I appreciate the irony the underlying issue is that if there is
a glitch in the system it is better that I found it and then asked
that it be referred on with a view to there being a fix. I wasn't
massively out of pocket but I was still mischarged and there might be
others who are having money sucked out of their PAYG balances for
doing nothing wrong. I can't see why the system did what it did but
even so I followed the rules, I checked the fares in advance and
*still* there was an issue.

Oh, indeed. Very correct and public-spirited of you and what most people in
this group would have done, I'm sure.

--
Colin Rosenstiel