Paul Terry wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12710059

OEPs are to be discontinued in May.

London Mayor Boris Johnson said: "For anyone heading to outer London the
extension permits were utterly baffling. I'm delighted they will no
longer be required."
--
Paul Terry

So, we've got rid of one very minor part of the whole ugly zonal fares/
Oyster mess, but the rest of the nightmare is still there...? Forgive
me for not getting to excited!

I'll save my cheering until NR finally bring back cheap offpeak paper
returns for the London area, so that Londoners - unlike everyone else
in the rest of the country - don't have to pay extra for basic
privacy! Why should only Londoners be disadvantaged that way?

Paul Corfield wrote:

extrapolated from theoretical possibility?

South Eastern seem to be the main culprits. I read something last night
that suggested they had programmed their gates to reject Oyster cards
when OEPs were not set. Naturally a ticket inspector was standing close
by to issue a PF.

Are you sure about that? I've used Oyster PAYG between Sydenham Hill
and Victoria several times, and never had any problems at all.

It sounds like one of those urban legends. You know how they start -
someone once had problems with a faulty Oyster reader, the badly-
trained ticket inspector didn't know what was wrong and mistakenly
assumed it was something to do the lack of an OEP, and the customer in
turn mistakenly assumed all sorts of weird conspiracy theories.

Given how many faulty Oyster readers there are out there, that's the
most likely explanation. There's one reader at Gipsy Hill that reads
the card and opens the barrier to let you out, no problems, but
sometimes doesn't always manage to write to tell the card that the
journey's been completed! Three times it given me an Unresolved
Journey because of that! I've tried telling the station man about it,
but he doesn't believe and/or understand it!

_That's_ why Oyster is a real con. It promises you "Sacrifice your
privacy and you'll be rewarded with cheap offpeak fares that you used
to get on paper anyway," but then it doesn't always keep its side of
the bargain and give us those cheap fares! You don't need additional
conspiracy theories about SouthEastern and OEPs, when the basic
concept of Oyster is already such a nightmare!

The sooner paper offpeak cheap day returns are restored within the
London area, the better!

"solar penguin" wrote in message
...

Are you sure about that? I've used Oyster PAYG between Sydenham Hill
and Victoria several times, and never had any problems at all.


And that's using PAYG in combination with a travelcard - if so for which
zones?

Paul S

Paul Scott wrote:
"solar penguin" wrote in message
...

Are you sure about that? I've used Oyster PAYG between Sydenham Hill
and Victoria several times, and never had any problems at all.


And that's using PAYG in combination with a travelcard - if so for which
zones?


No Travelcard. But that doesn't matter because the original poster
didn't mention anything at all about Travelcards.

In the bit you deliberately snipped he said, "South Eastern seem to be
the main culprits. I read something last night that suggested they had
programmed their gates to reject Oyster cards
when OEPs were not set."

As stated, that seems to apply to normal Oysters as well as ones with
Travelcards on them.

"solar penguin" wrote in message
...

Paul Scott wrote:
"solar penguin" wrote in message
...

Are you sure about that? I've used Oyster PAYG between Sydenham Hill
and Victoria several times, and never had any problems at all.

And that's using PAYG in combination with a travelcard - if so for which
zones?

No Travelcard. But that doesn't matter because the original poster
didn't mention anything at all about Travelcards.

In the bit you deliberately snipped he said, "South Eastern seem to be
the main culprits. I read something last night that suggested they had
programmed their gates to reject Oyster cards
when OEPs were not set."

As stated, that seems to apply to normal Oysters as well as ones with
Travelcards on them.

I expect Paul Corfield didn't mention travelcards because it is implied.
The original 'Southeastern' problem he is referring to WAS about people
arriving in Zone 1 with travelcards which were not valid there.

OEPs are completely irrelevant when there is no travelcard involved - as in
your own reported journey.

Paul S

On 12/03/2011 10:08, solar penguin wrote:


Paul Scott wrote:
"solar wrote in message
...

Are you sure about that? I've used Oyster PAYG between Sydenham Hill
and Victoria several times, and never had any problems at all.


And that's using PAYG in combination with a travelcard - if so for which
zones?


No Travelcard. But that doesn't matter because the original poster
didn't mention anything at all about Travelcards.

Oyster Extension Permits are only needed with Travelcards!

--
Arthur Figgis! Surrey, UK!

On Fri, 11 Mar 2011, Roy Badami wrote:

I misread the subject as "OAPs to be abandoned" and assumed this was
going to be a post about some reduction in validity of the Freedom Pass
and/or the national concessionary bus pass.

Then I (thought I) read:

Paul Terry wrote:

OAPs are to be discontinued in May.


...and I was thinking "??!"

:-)

I have visions of you spending the next couple of months kidnapping senior
citizens to take with you whenever you want to take a trip to the outer
zones.

tom

--
A plug on its back, straining to suck voltage from the sky

In message i, Tom
Anderson writes

I have visions of you spending the next couple of months kidnapping
senior citizens to take with you whenever you want to take a trip to
the outer zones.

Ah, time for a new escalator sign:

OAPs must be carried.

--
Paul Terry

In article ,
Tristan Miller wrote:

In article , Paul Terry wrote:

So what are they going to be replaced with? An honour system?

I wonder if revenue protection staff could do spot checks of people
leaving the station. I guess it may be a bit impractical in most
places. As more NR stations get gated this will presumably be less of
an issue.

-roy

On Mar 12, 8:29*pm, solar penguin wrote:
So, we've got rid of one very minor part of the whole ugly zonal fares/
Oyster mess, but the rest of the nightmare is still there...? Forgive
me for not getting to excited!

I'll save my cheering until NR finally bring back cheap offpeak paper
returns for the London area, so that Londoners - unlike everyone else
in the rest of the country - don't have to pay extra for basic
privacy! Why should only Londoners be disadvantaged that way?

Pay cash for an unregistered Oyster card: all the privacy you can eat.
You won't get your money back when you lose it, but then you won't get
a paper return and a wallet full of cash back when you lose those,
either (I'm assuming you don't carry credit cards - JOOI, do you also
refuse to carry fiat money and only use gold sovereigns...?)

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org