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Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every 2weeks
When I had an apparent Oyster overcharge a couple of weeks ago I went to
a TfL ticket office where they gave me a printout of my Oyster history. Since I use Oyster infrequently this went back several months, and showed (in addition to the problem I was then trying to solve) an unexpected debit for a trip on a route 405 bus last November. This surprised me, and so when I got home I checked my diary and found that I had been nowhere near London on that date. In any case since I have an over-60s bus pass, I never need to use Oyster on a bus in London. The only explanation I can think of is that some technical failure got my account charged for a trip actually made on a card owned by someone else, and that the card's record was updated when I used it next. This is rather worrying. I filled in an Oyster claim form online and have just got a reply from TfL saying that they cannot even do checks on journeys more than 8 weeks in the past, and that claims can be considered only if they are within the last 2 weeks. This seems wholly unreasonable, since the printout from my card clearly shows journeys back many months before. Since it appears that an Oyster Card account can be debited even when you don't use it, this also means that everyone with an Oyster Card really needs to check their journey history at least every two weeks, to make sure that there have not been any random debits made in their absence, so they can if necessary put in a claim within TfL's time limit. Fortunately accounts can be checked on-line (provided you have made at least one on-line top-up, a rather bizarre restriction) but this is still a bit of an imposition on the occasional user like me. I guess I shall just have to remember to do this from now on. -- Clive Page |
Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every2 weeks
On 13/04/2012 10:44, Paul Corfield wrote: On Fri, 13 Apr 2012 10:31:33 +0100, Clive wrote: When I had an apparent Oyster overcharge a couple of weeks ago I went to a TfL ticket office where they gave me a printout of my Oyster history. Since I use Oyster infrequently this went back several months, and showed (in addition to the problem I was then trying to solve) an unexpected debit for a trip on a route 405 bus last November. This surprised me, and so when I got home I checked my diary and found that I had been nowhere near London on that date. In any case since I have an over-60s bus pass, I never need to use Oyster on a bus in London. The only explanation I can think of is that some technical failure got my account charged for a trip actually made on a card owned by someone else, and that the card's record was updated when I used it next. This is rather worrying. I filled in an Oyster claim form online and have just got a reply from TfL saying that they cannot even do checks on journeys more than 8 weeks in the past, and that claims can be considered only if they are within the last 2 weeks. This seems wholly unreasonable, since the printout from my card clearly shows journeys back many months before. Since it appears that an Oyster Card account can be debited even when you don't use it, this also means that everyone with an Oyster Card really needs to check their journey history at least every two weeks, to make sure that there have not been any random debits made in their absence, so they can if necessary put in a claim within TfL's time limit. Fortunately accounts can be checked on-line (provided you have made at least one on-line top-up, a rather bizarre restriction) but this is still a bit of an imposition on the occasional user like me. I guess I shall just have to remember to do this from now on. A question - did you hand over your card at the ticket office for them to provide a printout? The print out should reflect what is on the *card* and not what may or may not be in the central system. Transaction data is only held centrally for 8 weeks AIUI whereas card data is the last 10 transactions and only changes as you use the card and the oldest data is overwritten. Do you ever use the 405 bus? The other thing to note is that the print out from a ticket office only shows the day and month, *not* the year - so this journey didn't necessarily happen in November 2011. (And AFAICS it's simply impossible for 'ghost journeys' to be recorded on an Oyster card.) |
Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every 2 weeks
In message , at 10:31:33 on Fri, 13 Apr
2012, Clive Page remarked: I filled in an Oyster claim form online and have just got a reply from TfL saying that they cannot even do checks on journeys more than 8 weeks in the past, and that claims can be considered only if they are within the last 2 weeks. This seems wholly unreasonable, since the printout from my card clearly shows journeys back many months before. The 8 weeks is mentioned on their web site, with a note saying they are in the process of extending it to two years. Not sure about the 2 weeks though, I managed to successfully complain about a problem on 2nd February, on 11th March. It doesn't even make sense for it to be "within two weeks of the end of the 8 weeks", unless they are secretly keeping everything for 10 weeks so they can sort problems out. -- Roland Perry |
Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every 2 weeks
In message , at 11:06:01 on Fri, 13 Apr
2012, Mizter T remarked: The other thing to note is that the print out from a ticket office only shows the day and month, *not* the year - so this journey didn't necessarily happen in November 2011. Maybe we can tell from the other entries whether it was Nov 2010, they should be in chronological order. Also, what was the fare charged, they tend to go up relentlessly year after year. -- Roland Perry |
Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every
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Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every2 weeks
On 13/04/2012 11:55, Roland Perry wrote: In message , at 11:06:01 on Fri, 13 Apr 2012, Mizter T remarked: The other thing to note is that the print out from a ticket office only shows the day and month, *not* the year - so this journey didn't necessarily happen in November 2011. Maybe we can tell from the other entries whether it was Nov 2010, they should be in chronological order. Also, what was the fare charged, they tend to go up relentlessly year after year. That's a good point - perhaps the OP could tell us what fare is shown? (Though that's not necessarily definitive, if the fare was capped - but whether that happened or not should be fairly obvious.) FWIW the 2009 Oyster PAYG bus fare was £1.00, the 2010 fare was £1.20, and the 2011 fare was £1.30. |
Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every2 weeks
On 13/04/2012 12:17, Mizter T wrote:
On 13/04/2012 11:55, Roland Perry wrote: In message , at 11:06:01 on Fri, 13 Apr 2012, Mizter T remarked: The other thing to note is that the print out from a ticket office only shows the day and month, *not* the year - so this journey didn't necessarily happen in November 2011. Maybe we can tell from the other entries whether it was Nov 2010, they should be in chronological order. Also, what was the fare charged, they tend to go up relentlessly year after year. That's a good point - perhaps the OP could tell us what fare is shown? (Though that's not necessarily definitive, if the fare was capped - but whether that happened or not should be fairly obvious.) Actually it's more than just fairly obvious, it's spelt out, as a line on the print-out reads: "*** cap applied ***" FWIW the 2009 Oyster PAYG bus fare was £1.00, the 2010 fare was £1.20, and the 2011 fare was £1.30. |
Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every 2 weeks
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Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every2 weeks
On 13/04/2012 10:44, Paul Corfield wrote:
A question - did you hand over your card at the ticket office for them to provide a printout? The print out should reflect what is on the *card* and not what may or may not be in the central system. Yes, I thought I'd made that clear, but do so now. Do you ever use the 405 bus? Sorry, my mistake the digits weren't very clear, it was the 507 bus. Yes, I have used it once or twice maybe once in the last 12 months. But I'm sure I wasn't in London on that date. And I never swipe my Oyster card on a bus. There is one other oddity in the printout on my card: a couple of tube journeys that I took in December don't seem to be there, but the November bus trip and a couple of top-ups that I made in December are there. I wonder if there's some data corruption on the card, so the whole printout is completely unreliable? -- Clive Page |
Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every2 weeks
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Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every2 weeks
On 13/04/2012 11:52, Roland Perry wrote:
It doesn't even make sense for it to be "within two weeks of the end of the 8 weeks", unless they are secretly keeping everything for 10 weeks so they can sort problems out. It doesn't make much sense. Here is their reply to my query: quote Oyster card journey history is held for a period of eight weeks. After eight weeks, the information is removed from the Oyster card and kept only for statistical analysis. It is not possible to reconnect the card and the journey history. Regrettably I’m unable to investigate further any overcharge which occurred on or before February 2012 as this is beyond the eight week period Transport for London (TfL) can hold journey data pertaining to individual customers’ accounts. The eight week period was felt sufficient for our needs whilst not infringing on customers’ rights of privacy and complies with the Data Protection Act 1998. Our Conditions of Carriage state that, any claims of this nature must be contested within 14 days of the journey in order for a refund to be considered. To download a copy of our Conditions of Carriage please visit: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...nuary-2012.pdf /quote -- Clive Page |
Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every
In article , (Clive Page)
wrote: On 13/04/2012 14:06, wrote: Journey history from a ticket machine shows the day of the week but not the year. The day of the week made it clear which year my wife's 30 March entries came from. So not hard to work out the year. Well this one doesn't show day of the week. As far as I can reproduce it, the first entry on the printout is: 13/11 11:59 Bus Boarding Route 507 £0.80 Are you referring to the printout or what shows on screen? The fare is, I think, the one applying in 2011 as I have a National Railcard discount loaded on to my Oyster Card. There are no railcard discounts on /bus/ fares! Further on I have another one that puzzles me, this says 29/12 14:54 Rejected Entry (Code 21) Covent Garden £0.00 I wasn't in London then either, and have no idea how you get a "Rejected Entry". Fortunately that didn't result in a charge. I'm coming to the view that there must be some data corruption going on. I can't check these old entries online, of course, as that only allows you to ask for the last 8 weeks, and only one week at a time. If you use the custom selection feature you can get more than one week at a time online. -- Colin Rosenstiel |
Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every
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Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every
In article , (Clive Page)
wrote: On 13/04/2012 20:39, wrote: There are no railcard discounts on /bus/ fares! Aren't there - since I haven't had to pay for bus fares for the last few years, I simply didn't know. In that case the fare of 80p looks very much below current levels. If you use the custom selection feature you can get more than one week at a time online. Yes, I see that now. It still doesn't get back as far as the printout I got at the end of March from a ticket office. My guess is that both these odd entries must date back a few years, and somehow have got stuck on my Oyster Card record. If so that's really confusing. Even so, TfL have stated that one must claim for refunds within 14 days, so it does seem to be important to check one's Oyster card at least every two weeks to make sure there is nothing unexpected there. It hasn't altered my preference for using paper tickets whenever possible. They haven't replied to me. It's not clear how one checks an unregistered Oyster card if one is charged after leaving London and don't return with it for over a year. Paper tickets are not an option for limited journeys when staying in London overnight. And cash fares are twice as expensive or more. -- Colin Rosenstiel |
Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every 2 weeks
In message , at 18:21:21 on Fri, 13 Apr
2012, Clive Page remarked: I can't check these old entries online, of course, as that only allows you to ask for the last 8 weeks, and only one week at a time. You can ask for any range of dates (up to 8wks obviously)- there's a drop down menu. But it's quite fiddly (and almost impossible on a smartphone) and as you've "discovered" quite well hidden. -- Roland Perry |
Another Oyster snag: you must check your history at least every 2 weeks
In message , at 18:25:11 on Fri, 13 Apr
2012, Clive Page remarked: Quote The eight week period was felt sufficient for our needs whilst not infringing on customers’ rights of privacy and complies with the Data Protection Act 1998. They seem to be in the process of reconsidering this, and extending it to two years. One of the interesting things about DPA in circumstances such as this is the time period that is deemed appropriate for keeping information like this is normally 'three billing periods'. So if it was for some kind of utility with a monthly billing period it would be three months, and if billed quarterly it would be nine months. This linkage to the billing period is a result of the way in which people look at their bills and complain, coupled with an expectation that you might be able to complain about things that happened in prior billing cycles, but not indefinitely. [The situation was altered for the telecoms industry, post 9/11, by the introduction of laws mandating various "Data retention" periods, which trumps DPA.] For PAYG Oyster there isn't really an equivalent "billing period" but one might invent a pseudo-billing-period of a week, and then allow complaints up to three weeks (then maybe a week to resolve them), after which point there's no DPA "necessity" for the data to be held any longer. Except they keep it for eight weeks, not four. Our Conditions of Carriage state that, any claims of this nature must be contested within 14 days of the journey in order for a refund to be considered. To download a copy of our Conditions of Carriage please visit: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...age-january-20 12.pdf /quote Such a simple system - it needs 53 pages of T&C, and that doesn't include any fares tables!!! Anyway, at the bottom of page 48, it mentions complaining within 28 days. (The expression "14 days" does not appear in the document anywhere). Irrespective of your specific issues with the bus fare, I think it's worth you complaining in writing that they have a serious staff training issue, and should investigate to see if others have been mistakenly fobbed off in the same way. ps So it seems to me the eight weeks arises from those four weeks, plus four more to carry out their investigation. -- Roland Perry |
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