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

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

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

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

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.)

In article , (Mizter T) wrote:

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.)

Sounds like I'll have problems with my wife's card then! I emailed them but
haven't had more than acknowledgement yet. :-(

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 13/04/2012 11:56, wrote:

In , (Mizter T) wrote:
[SNIP]
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.)

Sounds like I'll have problems with my wife's card then! I emailed them but
haven't had more than acknowledgement yet. :-(

I haven't looked at that thread yet!

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

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.

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.