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Oyster a real time waster
Yesterday I tried using my Oyster card on National Rail for the first
time. In just 2 NR journeys and 2 tube trips I got at least two problems. The first unresolved journey (ticket barrier at London Bridge NR at fault, apparently) I managed to get sorted out at South Kensington ticket office by merely queuing for 10 minutes, first refund £4. When finishing the day at King's Cross my balance was again too low, but was keen to catch a train home so didn't have time to resolve it then. I assumed that I could sort it out online, but for some ridiculous reason the journey history isn't available - unless you top up online. I have no idea whether the past history would have been magically viewable had I tried to do another top up - nothing explained this, and I had to nominate a particular station to get the top up. Since I come in on the Thameslink line and use one of several tube stations as my initial one, I can't easily specify which station I wanted to use. So I phoned the Oyster "help" line, which took me another 29 minutes. I *think* the issue is no resolved, with another refund of around £6. But I have no idea how the system managed to charge me in total £10 extra for just four journeys. To get the refund I had to specify the station to pick it up. Then having said Kings Cross St Pancras I was asked whether NR or TfL section - this was fairly easy. But having said the tube station I was then asked whether it was the Northern/Picc/Vict lines gates, or those for the Circle/Hamm&city/Met lines. This was getting absurd. But apparently I didn't have to specify whether it was the new Northern Ticket hall or the old Western one. This is very hard to understand. I then asked for a journey record to be emailed me - this apparently takes "up to 48 hours". This is again a ridiculous use of modern technology. There is no reason why this cannot be provided instantly. Have TfL taken leave of their senses in implementing Oyster Cards? If it is going to take me nearly an hour to resolve my problems every day that I use Oyster, I shall switch back to paper tickets, which yesterday would have cost about 85p more, but for an hour of my time, this is not expensive. I can see why there are still long queues at tube ticket offices, and so many people still using paper tickets. -- Clive Page |
Oyster a real time waster
On Feb 27, 12:00�pm, Clive Page wrote:
Yesterday I tried using my Oyster card on National Rail for the first time. �In just 2 NR journeys and 2 tube trips I got at least two problems. �The first unresolved journey (ticket barrier at London Bridge NR at fault, apparently) I managed to get sorted out at South Kensington ticket office by merely queuing for 10 minutes, first refund �4. When finishing the day at King's Cross my balance was again too low, but was keen to catch a train home so didn't have time to resolve it then. I assumed that I could sort it out online, but for some ridiculous reason the journey history isn't available - unless you top up online. I have no idea whether the past history would have been magically viewable had I tried to do another top up - nothing explained this, and I had to nominate a particular station to get the top up. �Since I come in on the Thameslink line and use one of several tube stations as my initial one, I can't easily specify which station I wanted to use. So I phoned the Oyster "help" line, which took me another 29 minutes. I *think* the issue is no resolved, with another refund of around �6. But I have no idea how the system managed to charge me in total �10 extra for just four journeys. To get the refund I had to specify the station to pick it up. �Then having said Kings Cross St Pancras I was asked whether NR or TfL section - this was fairly easy. �But having said the tube station I was then asked whether it was the Northern/Picc/Vict lines gates, or those for the Circle/Hamm&city/Met lines. �This was getting absurd. �But apparently I didn't have to specify whether it was the new Northern Ticket hall or the old Western one. �This is very hard to understand. I then asked for a journey record to be emailed me - this apparently takes "up to 48 hours". �This is again a ridiculous use of modern technology. �There is no reason why this cannot be provided instantly. Have TfL taken leave of their senses in implementing Oyster Cards? If it is going to take me nearly an hour to resolve my problems every day that I use Oyster, I shall switch back to paper tickets, which yesterday would have cost about 85p more, but for an hour of my time, this is not expensive. �I can see why there are still long queues at tube ticket offices, and so many people still using paper tickets. -- Clive Page You have my sympathies. I have probably wasted an aggregate of an hour and a half over the last two months in queuing at ticket offices to resolve various Oyster problems. It seems that most of those in the queue in front of me were doing something similar. The ticket offices should be renamed "Oyster Crisis Window" or something similar! Marc. |
Oyster a real time waster
On Feb 27, 12:00*pm, Clive Page wrote: Yesterday I tried using my Oyster card on National Rail for the first time. *In just 2 NR journeys and 2 tube trips I got at least two problems. *The first unresolved journey (ticket barrier at London Bridge NR at fault, apparently) I managed to get sorted out at South Kensington ticket office by merely queuing for 10 minutes, first refund £4. When finishing the day at King's Cross my balance was again too low, but was keen to catch a train home so didn't have time to resolve it then. If you're willing to provide information as to what the journey were that you made, then perhaps utl-ers might be able to untangle what went on here. Going on the above information, it's impossible to say. FWIW I've used Oyster PAYG on NR on numerous occasions without any problems (including through LU and NR journeys). I assumed that I could sort it out online, but for some ridiculous reason the journey history isn't available - unless you top up online. I have no idea whether the past history would have been magically viewable had I tried to do another top up - nothing explained this, and I had to nominate a particular station to get the top up. *Since I come in on the Thameslink line and use one of several tube stations as my initial one, I can't easily specify which station I wanted to use. The online journey history can sometimes takes several days to update, and is also sometimes missing entries (and indeed exits). No idea why this is the case. |
Oyster a real time waster
In message , at 12:25:35 on
Sat, 27 Feb 2010, Paul Corfield remarked: What? - about 2% of all travellers using magnetic tickets? - if that's your definition of "many people". Does that figure exclude people with paper season tickets and outboundary travelcards? -- Roland Perry |
Oyster a real time waster
In message , Clive Page
writes I then asked for a journey record to be emailed me - this apparently takes "up to 48 hours". This is again a ridiculous use of modern technology. There is no reason why this cannot be provided instantly. I guess they have to allow for the fact that a passenger may have used a bus - Oyster data from buses can only be downloaded when the vehicle returns to the garage, and is not available instantly. -- Paul Terry |
Oyster a real time waster
Mizter T wrote:
On Feb 27, 12:00 pm, Clive Page wrote: Yesterday I tried using my Oyster card on National Rail for the first time. In just 2 NR journeys and 2 tube trips I got at least two problems. The first unresolved journey (ticket barrier at London Bridge NR at fault, apparently) I managed to get sorted out at South Kensington ticket office by merely queuing for 10 minutes, first refund £4. When finishing the day at King's Cross my balance was again too low, but was keen to catch a train home so didn't have time to resolve it then. If you're willing to provide information as to what the journey were that you made, then perhaps utl-ers might be able to untangle what went on here. Going on the above information, it's impossible to say. I predict now that the journeys will have timed out somewhere, and the OP has had an 'uncompleted' journey followed by an 'unstarted' journey. Seems to be the usual problem when wandering around the system at leisure... Paul S |
Oyster a real time waster
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Oyster a real time waster
In message , Martin Petrov
writes I know it's probably the wrong attitude, but is it actually worth the time and effort to recoup a couple of quid? Presumably, that's not your only journey on the day, and by the end of the day, you're likely to hit your daily cap, making that particular error not worth wasting your time on? Depends what the actual problem was. If it was failure to register a touch out, then the maximum cash fare is applied for the journey and this amount doesn't count towards the daily cap. :( -- Paul Terry |
Oyster a real time waster
In message , at 17:49:34 on Sat, 27 Feb
2010, Martin Petrov remarked: I know it's probably the wrong attitude, but is it actually worth the time and effort to recoup a couple of quid? "All it takes for evil to flourish, is for good men to do nothing". It's invidious that the charging scheme is such that you need to engage in regular fights to prove it's overcharged you. There are many things they could do to avoid the accusation that it's loaded against the traveller - for example emailing a regular statement of usage so you could more easily spot hiccups. -- Roland Perry |
Oyster a real time waster
On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:00:32 +0000, Paul Corfield wrote:
It would appear from the OP that there was a faulty gate and therefore that does need to be put right although I understand the frustration with a long wait at a ticket office. Well yes, I fully agree that you (and Mr Terry and Mr Perry) are correct, and that I was exposing one of my worse traits, being that if something takes effort, impacts nobody else directly (and the rewards are insufficient), then I probably won't do it. hangs head In reality, I've never actually NOTICED that the technology has been the source of the problem, most of the time it's been my mistake, usually when I get off an overground train at Stratford, completely forget to touch in before getting on the Central Line as you don't go through a barrier and then get charged full-whack for a one stop journey to Leyton. In those situations, I'm quite prepared to take the hit for my own stupidity, as I feel it's the only way I'll learn. After being overcharged for DLR journeys because I kept forgetting to touch in at Canary Wharf (again, because there's no gateline), I have at least learned my lesson, and these days never fail to touch in, whether I have a monthly on my Oystercard or not. |
Oyster a real time waster
In message , Paul Corfield
writes I may be wrong but surely you can see your history if you have an on line account not just if you have actually undertaken a top up operation? I have only recently added a "real" PAYG card to sit alongside my staff one so the normal customer interface for Oyster is something I have limited experience of. No you cannot. You can only see the history if you actually top up online - and I have always topped up at a ticket machine (or a ticket window if I'm passing and there is no queue). I tried to find out whether I would be able to see past history if I topped up yesterday or only future history, but a serious web search failed to find the answer. Do you happen to know? Since I had topped up on Friday (because the £10 overcharge had left my balance too low to finish the day) I didn't really want to put more in TfL's coffers. I agree it's not worth my time, but a principle is at stake: if the system is so poor that many people get overcharged, and the victims don't try to get a refund, the authorities at TfL will have no incentive to improve things. As it is, of my 29 minutes on the phone, at least 10 were also occupying the time of someone they were paying, so I suspect that small salary cost will act as a tiny incentive on them to fix the problems. Against that - Oyster problems have been going some time, and the problems don't seem to diminish. If you can remember your journey pattern and are prepared to share it then people here might be able to assist. The journey info will still be held on your card (assuming you've not made a further 10 trips) and an LUL office can print that out for you as can a TfL bus ticket machine. I don't have the journey history yet - it takes *48 hours* to get it emailed, according to the man on the Oyster help line (how stupid is that, when you can get an instant printout at a TfL station). I suspect that the error at London Bridge may have been that my card didn't register on a gate but I got through because it was still open from the person in front. I have a vague memory of the gates closing rather promptly behind me, which they don't usually do. From now on I shall make sure that I only enter a gate which is already closed, to make sure that if my card doesn't work I will know about it (there doesn't seem to be any other way of being sure about this). I realise that If everybody did that it would severely reduce the gate throughput at peak hours, but that's not my problem. I also don't understand why the system is so dumb. The sequence of events for my first problem, with approx times, was: 16:30 Forest Hill entry - recorded ok 17:00 London Bridge NR exit - possibly not recorded 17:05 London Bridge tube entry - recorded ok 17:30 South Kensington tube exit - recorded ok Even if my exit at London Bridge NR was missed, it should have been possible for an even slightly intelligent system to work out what overall journey I was making, and record the correct charge for it. And I still don't have the faintest idea why, after my first overcharge of £4 for the unresolved journey, I then got overcharged another £6 when doing only another two journeys that day, going through only 4 more gates all at TfL stations. What? - about 2% of all travellers using magnetic tickets? - if that's your definition of "many people". Well that makes many people in total, even if small in percentage terms. But my sample is of people living outside London, where we have the choice of a ticket to London Terminals (or Thameslink) plus Oyster within London, or alternatively a London One-day Travelcard which is all on a single paper ticket. Almost all of those that I know who have this choice are still using paper tickets throughout. Some have tried Oyster and given up, having had problems like mine, others are simply baffled by the complexities. Many don't even realise that in some circumstances it would save them a pound or two now and again to use Oyster, but in a few cases I think it would be more expensive. Working out which is which takes a lot of time and effort. -- Clive Page |
Oyster a real time waster
On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:00:32 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote: I have no expectation that Oyster will ever be 100% perfect - I don't expect that to be true for HK or Singapore either. I think it may be - but it's only because Singapore don't do anything "clever" like Oyster does. Oyster is, so far as I'm aware, by far the most complex of these schemes, so it is going by definition to have more difficulties. Neil -- Neil Williams Put my first name before the at to reply. |
Oyster a real time waster
On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:54:59 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote: Does that figure exclude people with paper season tickets and outboundary travelcards? Many of those might well be happy to use Oyster if it were available to them. Indeed, I can perhaps see a day where Travelcard seasons are issued in two parts - an Oyster for the 1-6 (or 1-9) bit, and a paper ticket for the rail bit. If TfL could get to a point where the magstripe reading parts could be decommissioned on the barrier lines, they could save a fortune. Neil -- Neil Williams Put my first name before the at to reply. |
Oyster a real time waster
The online journey history can sometimes takes several days to update,
and is also sometimes missing entries (and indeed exits). No idea why this is the case. The other day I made a journey of bus, NR (£2.00), NR (£2.00) and bus again and was capped at £5.10 as it should have been. When I checked the online journey history a little later that day the balance had dropped by £7.50 (consistent with a £1.20 bus, £2.00 NR and £4.30 NR entry) before correcting to the £5.10 drop a couple of hours later. So clearly the online system was updating reasonably quickly with the correct balance and yet none of my journeys had appeared in the journey history at that stage (first to appear was actually the first NR exit which of course shows as a £2.30 refund to an as yet unseen deduction). My last two bus journeys from nine days ago still haven't appeared and yet again the balance perfectly correct. It seems curious that the online system always seems to know the correct balance to within a few hours and yet seems ignorant of the journeys behind it. The online journey history is still infuriating in the way it displays transactions. I can appreciate that the source information probably does only contain date and time, location, amount deducted/refunded and balance. That's fine, but why on earth differentiate between a deduction and a refund with a '-' above the deduction? What is wrong with with writing e.g. -£4.30? Better still use separate columns and, horror of horrors, what about using colour? What about using icons to distinguish between tube, NR, bus, DLR and tram? Is this really asking so much? Also at the moment the 'Price cap' column doesn't seem to be indicating anything as it used to. G. |
Oyster a real time waster
On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 01:16:36PM +0000, Martin Petrov wrote:
In reality, I've never actually NOTICED that the technology has been the source of the problem, most of the time it's been my mistake ... A system that makes it easy to make expensive mistakes when they could easily be "designed out" is faulty by design. For example, a web site where you hit the "pay" button, and nothing appears to happen, so you hit it again, and get billed twice, is faulty. Or a ticketing system that has arcane rules about when you need to touch in (and then makes it hard to find the necessary equipment) is faulty. That the Oyster rules are arcane and weird is obvious, you just need to look at the questions that get asked about it here. It therefore follows that the design is faulty. Yes, I know, the faults (well, some of them at any rate) are down to the TOCs being sulky, but that doesn't stop them from being design faults. -- David Cantrell | Bourgeois reactionary pig |
Oyster a real time waster
On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 12:00:08PM +0000, Clive Page wrote:
So I phoned the Oyster "help" line, which took me another 29 minutes. I *think* the issue is no resolved, with another refund of around £6. Does that include a refund for the 29 minutes you spent calling their scam, errm sorry, "special" rate phone line? Have TfL taken leave of their senses in implementing Oyster Cards? Yes. Oyster is a good idea, implemented badly. -- David Cantrell | Minister for Arbitrary Justice Eye have a spelling chequer / It came with my pea sea It planely marques four my revue / Miss Steaks eye kin knot sea. Eye strike a quay and type a word / And weight for it to say Weather eye am wrong oar write / It shows me strait a weigh. |
Oyster a real time waster
On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 06:45:48PM +0000, Neil Williams wrote:
On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:54:59 +0000, Roland Perry wrote: Does that figure exclude people with paper season tickets and outboundary travelcards? Many of those might well be happy to use Oyster if it were available to them. Indeed, I can perhaps see a day where Travelcard seasons are issued in two parts - an Oyster for the 1-6 (or 1-9) bit, and a paper ticket for the rail bit. If TfL could get to a point where the magstripe reading parts could be decommissioned on the barrier lines, they could save a fortune. Just out of interest, how, then, would one buy a ticket from Brighton to Edinburgh? You can't expect the ticket offices at Brighton* and Edinburgh to keep a stock of Oyster cards. Nor could you reasonably expect everyone travelling across London to find and queue at two ticket offices one either side of the city, one to pick up a silly little plastic card and pay for it (having already paid for a through ticket), and the other to hand it back and get a refund. That would be even crazier than OEPs! * or for even more fun and frolics, consider a less well-used station, such as Bexhill -- David Cantrell | London Perl Mongers Deputy Chief Heretic While researching this email, I was forced to carry out some investigative work which unfortunately involved a bucket of puppies and a belt sander -- after JoeB, in the Monastery |
Oyster a real time waster
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Oyster a real time waster
In message , David
Cantrell writes On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 12:00:08PM +0000, Clive Page wrote: So I phoned the Oyster "help" line, which took me another 29 minutes. I *think* the issue is no resolved, with another refund of around £6. Does that include a refund for the 29 minutes you spent calling their scam, errm sorry, "special" rate phone line? Fortunately I was able to do it on a Saturday when I *think* it is charged by BT at zero. If when I get my next bill I find something different, I shall be really annoyed. By the way, I have now got my journey history by emailed PDF file, but it took TfL more than the advertised "up to 48 hours". It shows that the missing gate at one section of London Bridge was the problem, and that passing through a tube gate at London Bridge a few minutes later didn't allow the system to work out what I was doing. I'm more concerned about the fact that when I called at the ticket office at South Ken the man claimed that he had sorted out my unresolved journey and given me a credit for it, but actually he had not. That partly explains why there was ~£6 overcharged by the end of the day. I arranged to get a refund at King's Cross St.Pancras, and I'm going to London tomorrow and may well need to use Oyster, only not there, so I shall not be able to check whether I really get the credit. Such an unnecessarily restrictive system. I think I understood that if I fail to collect the credit within 7 days, I can spend another 29 minutes on the phone trying to get it applied somewhere else. Aren't I lucky. -- Clive Page |
Oyster a real time waster
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Oyster a real time waster
On Mar 2, 12:44*am, wrote: In article , (Clive Page) wrote: Fortunately I was able to do it on a Saturday when I *think* it is charged by BT at zero. *If when I get my next bill I find something different, I shall be really annoyed. 0845 is included in BT bundles now. Mine is 24/7 for calls up to an hour but the basic option is weekends only. I can imagine some calls to the helpdesk could go over an hour but not too often. The poor people who are really buggered by the shutting of the 020 7227 xxxx number are mobile users. Don't call the helpdesk - contact them via the secure web form here (select Make a complaint -- Oyster etc): http://www.tfl.gov.uk/helpandcontact Also worth leaving it a few days to see if any problem is identified and a refund automatically issued. |
Oyster a real time waster
On Mon, Mar 01, 2010 at 09:09:54PM +0000, Clive Page wrote:
In message , David Cantrell writes On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 12:00:08PM +0000, Clive Page wrote: So I phoned the Oyster "help" line, which took me another 29 minutes. I *think* the issue is no resolved, with another refund of around £6. Does that include a refund for the 29 minutes you spent calling their scam, errm sorry, "special" rate phone line? Fortunately I was able to do it on a Saturday when I *think* it is charged by BT at zero. That depends on your tariff. And certainly doesn't apply to mobiles. An awful lot of people don't have a landline any more. Me having to pay to sort out TfL's mistakes is yet another reason I won't use PAYG until it's rolled out *properly* south of the river, with my local station able to do everything. -- header FROM_DAVID_CANTRELL From =~ /david.cantrell/i describe FROM_DAVID_CANTRELL Message is from David Cantrell score FROM_DAVID_CANTRELL 15.72 # This figure from experimentation |
Oyster a real time waster
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