Grumble. Bloody Oyster

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Elsie
Zone 3
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Joined: 03 Aug 2016, 21:45

Grumble. Bloody Oyster

Post by Elsie »

My Mrs is in London at least once a fortnight and uses the tube sparingly, mainly as she is addicted to upping her step count on her Fitbit. When she does use the tube, she uses her business contactless card and sings the praises of the TfL systems for recording her journeys. For months she's been banging on at me about using my bank card when I come to London with the comment "It doesn't matter how much you use it, your daily use will be capped".

My opinion is that when I'm 'playing' on the tube I'm making lots of changes and I simply don't trust the system. I'd rather pay a flat fee for a paper card and no that no matter where I go, I cannot be overcharged.

To try and prove a point, she bought me an Oyster card for my birthday and loaded it with £25 for my trip to London last week. Despite my reservations, she was absolutely adamant that this would work. I used the card between 10:48 and 19:33 to do a Zone 1 challenge and after this, visit a friend living in Tottenham Hale (Zone 3). I used the card at every barrier to enter and exit the system, just as I would if I had been carrying a paper card. I've checked my balance and from a £25 start, I am left with a balance of £1.50.

A Zone 1-3 paper travel card would have cost me £12.30. Using the Oyster has cost £23.50. What the absolute fluff?!

I've checked online and can see statements:

We are not able to show where you touched in during this journey
We are not able to show where you touched out during this journey

Which is bloody annoying as I tapped in/out everywhere I could - what happened to their mantra of "Daily Capping" and "You can't overspend". Cobblers. In the same way I refuse to use self-service "Unexpected item in bagging area" checkouts in Supermarkets, I'll never use an Oyster/Bank card for the tube again. I'm sticking to a paper card knowing that I can't be ripped off.
Elsie
DavidC
Zone 6
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Re: Grumble. Bloody Oyster

Post by DavidC »

From the sequence, can you work out where the problems were (stations/routes) ? Maybe post them in case people can suggest reasons.

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michael_churchill
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Re: Grumble. Bloody Oyster

Post by michael_churchill »

Maybe you fell foul of the maximum journey time gotcha (http://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/maximum-journey-times/)

If you take longer than the allowed time (which depends on the number of zones you cross) between touching in and touching out, then it treats the touch-in as an incomplete journey with no touch-out AND the touch-out as an incomplete journey with no touch-in, so you get charged two lots of maximum fare. Maximum fares for incomplete journeys DO NOT count towards the cap.

Doing the zone 1 challenge on a weekday gives you 90 minutes, so if you exceeded that time between touches more than once it mounts up.

Also, don't forget Out of Station Interchanges (http://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/osi-list/). For example, if you went between the two Paddington stations, touching in at the second less than 20 minutes after touching out at the first is an OSI and it is treated as one journey. For normal punters, this is good because you only get charged once, but the maximum journey time is applied to the whole thing.
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The Orange One
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Re: Grumble. Bloody Oyster

Post by The Orange One »

michael_churchill wrote:Also, don't forget Out of Station Interchanges (http://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/osi-list/). For example, if you went between the two Paddington stations, touching in at the second less than 20 minutes after touching out at the first is an OSI and it is treated as one journey. For normal punters, this is good because you only get charged once, but the maximum journey time is applied to the whole thing.
There is a way to break an OSI! If the second station in your OSI you're visiting has a proper ticket barrier, you can touch out at the first, touch in at the second, touch out at the second then touch in at the second and this breaks the interchange. This method does fall flat when you're doing an interchange to a station with only validators, as a triple touch on a validator does not have the same effect.

I will use Oyster on certain preplanned challenges - the Zone 1, the DLR, the Mouse, even the Points of the Compass - when and only when I know I will stay within the time limit. TfL do NOT look kindly on exceeding journey times.
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Tube Geek
The Twilight Zone
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Re: Grumble. Bloody Oyster

Post by Tube Geek »

Even if it does go wrong, the people at TfL are helpful. Whilst my Oyster used £12, my dads bank card cost £70 when we did the big challenge. However he hadn't tapped in/out on ones with just a pad and no gates. However, the guy the other end of the phone was very nice and helped us get the correct price. So I wouldn't worry TOO much...
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