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

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.

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.

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

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

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

On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:18:47 -0800, wrote:

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

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? I know it all depends how much you value your own time, but....

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

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

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.