Is Oystercard profiting from ‘out of towners’ like me?
Last week, I was surprised – and inconvenienced – to find my OysterCard had run out of credit. Again. I went to the ticket window and asked the woman to put £5 on it.
“You’ve got a negative balance” she said after swiping the card.
“What’s that?” I asked. ‘Look” she said showing me her little screen “It says -£2.20’ “
“How the hell did I get a negative balance?” I asked. She printed a list of my journeys over the last couple of days. The first thing that struck me was how many of them were £4.00 journeys, not the usual £1.60.
“Why was I charged £4.00 for travelling two stops between Richmond and Gunnersbury?” I asked, confused.
The lady printed out my ‘Oyster Usage Statement’ for the last two days:
19/11 08:00 – Gunnersbury No Route Data £4.00
19/11 16:47 Pre Pay entry Gunnersbury £4.00
19/11 16.47 Add Pre Pay Gunnersbury £10.00
20/11 10.41 – Gunnersbury No Route Data £4.00
20/11 13.52 Pre Pay Entry Gunnersbury £4.00ending up, of course, with the attempt to get through gate with a negative balance
20/11 18.21 Rejected Exit (Code 36)
She explained that the reason this had happened was that somehow I hadn’t registered the start of my journey. Her explanation was that often, the card doesn’t register properly – but still opens the gates.
Eh? Hang on a minute.
It failed to register my card properly yet still let me through? And given the gates opened to let me through, how was I supposed to know I was being charged £4.00 each time for a £1.60 fare?
I was, as you can imagine, outraged, thinking “I’ve been overcharged by nearly £10 by a system that’s programmed to let me through a gate and then secretly charge me more than double the fare!!”
Well, apparently, it’s much simpler than that. I found out today that if you take a train (main line) to Richmond – as I did – you either have to exit the train station with your mainline ticket and come back in with your OysterCard or find a machine to ‘touch in’ to start your journey.
Apologies to TfL. I got it wrong. I’ve obviously had to learn the hard (expensive) way 
. But what the lady at the ticket office said worries me. Does the system really allow people in through the gates without properly registering the start point of their journey?
[...] got ripped off to the tune of £10 in just four short journeys last week. I blogged about it here. My point was – and still is - what do you call a system that lets you through the [...]
How do you expect the oyster to know where you got on the tube if you don’t “touch in”?
Thanks, BM – I know that now.. and you’ll see I took it on the chin that I didn’t understand how it worked. Not so easy to work out if you’re a newcomer to Oyster as I was. Shit, I was buying individual tickets up until a couple of years ago…