| Topic: | Re:Re: Oyster Cards: Where have you been caught out? | |
| Posted by: | Chris Veasey | |
| Date/Time: | 07/03/11 10:43:00 |
| Sorry, but from what I have repeatedly heard from a variety of punters the overcharging is definitely NOT all due to not 'touching out' (whether by 'forgetting' or - as you groundlessly accuse all the victims 'not being able to be bothered' to do so). Just because you (or some others) don't happen to have been cheated by the system's inbuilt bugs, or haven't spotted you've been, doesn't mean that all or even any such cheated punters are at fault. There's a certain element of folk on this chatsite, including some who've chipped in on this thread whose smug attitude to anything seems to be 'I don't have a problem, so if you do it must be your fault'. And the need to spend time and effort checking afterwards whather you've been cheated or not, and if so to spend further time and effort seeking redress, is something that many suppliers of goods and services - especially transport providers - rely on to discourage refund requests and hence maximise income (ingoring, as most organisations do - again, especially transport providers - the income they lose through potential punters being put off by hearing of such pernicious practices). And as I've already pointed out on this thread and previously, unlike the Travelcard system Oyster is inherently cock-eyed in that it charges more for for the inconvenience of having to change buses or changing from bus to train or vice versa en route than for a more convenient journey on which there's no need to change. For most train journeys, once you're on the network you don't have to pass through barriers and 'touch in/out' again when changing trains and hence incur another charge, except at places like Hammersmith where you have to change stations. As a result, many bus or bus/train journeys can cost more than the train alternative (where the latter meaningfully exists), despite buses generally providing a much lower quality of service and being much less expensive to provide. This applies to cash fares as well as Oyster, but is grossly unfair and unacceptable whichever system, and not something calculated to encourage the use of public transport by those lucky enough to have a realistic alternative means of travel. |