Since the last blog post flagging the issue of #OysterFraud in Croydon a number of victims have come forward and several journalists are now investigating. So far victims of Transport for Londons dubious technology glitch have been tracked via twitter and include people who have suffered in Purley, Croydon, Selhurst, Crystal Palace, Earlsfield and Victoria.
It is becoming clear that the issue relates to late night travel and passengers exiting and touching out via open ticket barriers. E.g If you exit East Croydon station late at night via the open oversize luggage barrier on the left - when you touch out - this will be counted by TfL as a touch in. Adding a tally of 2 incomplete Oyster journeys to your bill and charging you £8.80 in penalty fares, even on a capped Oyster card. A colleague suggested #OccupyOyster and plans are afoot for an awareness raising campaign to flag the problem to passengers. The core aim of #OccupyOyster will be to peacefully inform passengers that they may have been penalised by TfL over the last 3 years, despite having touched in and touched out of the network. "Oyster Credit Protection Officers" in high visibility vests will patrol known hotspots to inform them of the issue. Pending legal advice, stickers have been designed which may be placed on offending oyster barriers.
This isn't the only Oyster scame. I've also been charged for entering a station, waiting for my train only for it to be cancelled, realising that I would miss my connection at Clapham Junction therefore leaving the station 10 minutes after I had entered. This cost me £1.20, not a huge amount but when I asked for it back, eventually I had an e-mail saying that the only way they could credit it back to my Oyster card so long as I told them which station I would next be travelling from, and so long as that was within the next 7 days. As it happened I don't travel by train that often, the instruction was that I should keep asking for it.
ReplyDeleteI never got the refund of course, excuse the long comment!