On 26 May, 09:38, Mizter T wrote:
On May 26, 3:18*am, D DB 90001
wrote:



On 25 May, 20:54, wrote:

On 25 May, 20:12, Matthew Dickinson
wrote:

The gateline for Platforms 2-5 at Paddington has had "No Oyster"
stickers fixed to each gate. I don't know if the gates actually don't
contain readers, or if they've been disabled as almost all trains from
these platform do not stop wihin London.

The validators at the front of Kings Cross for Platforms 1-8 are now
in use.

I could have done with knowing that before I attempted to travel from
Kings cross to Finsbury Park without touching in (not knowing there
were validators at KGX) and then being caught out by RPIs at Finsbury
Park and charged a Penalty fare for this lack of knowledge. When I
claimed that there weren't any validators for platforms 1-8 they
claimed that there were validators at *every arch*, which isn't 100%
true, there were a fair few validators, but not on every arch.
Incidently, why couldn't the validators be positioned in a more
obvious position - i.e. next to the platform? Also there isn't a lot
of signage for the validators compared to other stations where
validators are used, so I wouldn't be surprised if others have also
been caught out by this.

When was this? AFAICS no RPI should have issued a penalty fare for an
Oyster PAYG user who hadn't touched in at Kings Cross and who was only
travelling as far as Finsbury Park before the new Oyster readers at KX
(next to platforms 1-8) were switched on, and even after that they
should have had some tolerance.

If it was recently I'd strongly suggest you appeal - but if one pays
up on the spot one loses their right to appeal don't they?


I didn't have enough cash on me to pay the full penalty fare at the
time, but they did manage to get £5 off me. I'd already lost £4 off
the Oyster when I tried to touch out at Finsbury Park just before
this, and I was on my way to the ticket office to try and get it
refunded when I was stopped by a group of very eager RPIs. Presumeably
these ticket checks are designed to deter regular fare-dodgers from
using the station, which is unbarriered as we all know. I tried to
explain that I didn't know that there were Oyster validators at KGX
but they kept on ignoring me and insisted there were validators on all
the arches, which is not entirely true, only some of the arches have
validators although they are there. After they finally let me go, at
this stage I'd given up arguing with them and just wanted to continue
on my journey, I was then checked again on the way to the mainline
platforms, but I had a perfectly valid ticket from Finsbury Park to
Peterborough so they couldn't give me another penalty fare!

This was last Thursday, I'm not sure when the validators came into
use.

*This is very similar, although with some distinct differences, to the
incident MIG had at Euston when trying to use Oyster Season / BZ6
ticket at Euston, albeit with PAYG instead, and not BZ6.


They never had them from new. *As you guess trains from platforms 1 -
5 never stop at an oyster station first stop will be slough.

Well, actually I once had the unfortunate experience of being diverted
into platform 5 on a slow train and was unable to touch out as a
result of the missing oyster reader, hence incurring a penalty fare
when I tried to touch in immediately afterwards into Paddington
Underground station.

I didn't realise slow trains made appearances at the long-distance
platforms at Paddington - anyone know how often this happens?

In this case I suggest there are two courses of possible action - one
is to go to a (Oyster-enabled) gateline and touch-out, either by using
the standalone reader next to the manual gate if there is one (less
likely now that 'wide aisle gates' are appearing everywhere) or
otherwise by awkwardly reaching over and touching-out on the 'other
side' of an exit gate (which will then open it but that's not your
problem).

At that stage I was more concerned with getting through the barrier at
all without oyster PAYG on the gates and was just relieved that I was
allowed out. Then I continued with my journey on the Underground,
completely forgetting that I hadn't touched out before touching in
again, and at this point I wasn't that bothered about the £4 loss, I
just wanted to complete the journey.

The other course of action is to contact Oyster customer services and
ask for a refund. You don't need to call them up - you can send them a
message using a secure 'web form', just follow the instructions on
this help page:https://custserv.tfl.gov.uk/icss_csi...on..do?entityN...


I have got refunds for oyster over-charging before, but there was one
time I attempted to get a refund and it turned out I had made so many
individual journeys that day since the overcharging occurred that they
couldn't actually find it on the recent history and therefore couldn't
refund it. These days I don't frequently get caught out for touching
in/out errors and usually I'm not bothered enough to try and get a
refund. For multiple journeys it is far safer to get a Z1-6 travelcard
because that way the chances of getting charged an extra £4 are
minimal and you don't have to worry about touching in/out when there
are no barriers.