Advice on Avoiding Oyster Catchouts

[Belperpete]

A recent thread highlighted that there are various features built into the Oyster card system designed to catch fraudulent use, but which can sometimes unwittingly catch out legitimate users. In the case in question, the user made what he considered to be two quite separate journeys with a short break between, but which Oyster considered to be one linked journey. As he exceeded the maximum journey time for what Oyster considered to be one journey, so Oyster imposed a penalty fare. I have had a penalty fare in a similar situation, and also when exiting a station when finding there were no trains to my destination, and so tapping out too soon after tapping in.

These kind of penalty fares can cause a problem if you don't have sufficient balance in your Oyster account, and it therefore goes into debit without you knowing. In the thread mentioned, the OP did not have sufficient balance, and the situation then escalated for reasons irrelevant to this discussion. Fortunately, in my cases, they did not cause an issue, other than needing a quick phone call to get the penalty removed.

Am I correct in thinking that the issues caused by going into negative balance can be avoided by having auto top-up set to ensure that you always have sufficient balance? And if so, what top up balance would it be necessary to set?

Can this kind of thing also happen with contactless? Or is it only Oyster?

 

[gordonthemoron]

The minimum top up balance, and top up amount are both £20

 

[Hadders]

As he exceeded the maximum journey time for what Oyster considered to be one journey, so Oyster imposed a penalty fare.

I know I might be seen as being pedantic but it's important to get this right.

Oyster did not impose a Penalty Fare - these can only be imposed by a revenue inspector. What Oyster does is charge a maximum fare. If a journey exceeds the time limit then you can get charged two maximum fares, one related to the touch-in the other to the touch out.

 

[Haywain]

I have also been caught out in broadly similar circumstances, but in my favour. Taking a break during a journey between stations and finding I wasn't charged twice because of an OOSI that I was unaware of.

 

[DaveB10780]

The minimum top up balance, and top up amount are both £20

I think it used to be. Nowadays the balance is still £20 but you can top up by £10 which is what I do.

 

[Nottingham59]

If a journey exceeds the time limit then you can get charged two maximum fares, one related to the touch-in the other to the touch out.

Will having a minimum balance of £20 - and thus able to cover two maximum fares - be enough to avoid unpleasantness if challenged by revenue protection? Or would it merely reduce the chances of being brought to their attention at an exit barrier?

 

[gordonthemoron]

I think it used to be. Nowadays the balance is still £20 but you can top up by £10 which is what I do.

Cheers, I’ve changed mine now

 

[MikeWh]

Am I correct in thinking that the issues caused by going into negative balance can be avoided by having auto top-up set to ensure that you always have sufficient balance? And if so, what top up balance would it be necessary to set?

Yes. Auto topup is triggered when you start a journey with less than £20 on your PAYG balance. The minimum auto topup is £10 which will reset your balance to just under £30.

Can this kind of thing also happen with contactless? Or is it only Oyster?

Only Oyster. With contactless the system works out what fares you should have been charged and issues a request to your bank overnight. It also avoids the situation in the other thread by breaking an OSI if that avoids the maximum journey time being exceeded.

Will having a minimum balance of £20 - and thus able to cover two maximum fares - be enough to avoid unpleasantness if challenged by revenue protection? Or would it merely reduce the chances of being brought to their attention at an exit barrier?

It will almost certainly avoid confrontation completely. The issue in the other thread was only because the first entry charge took the balance below zero so when the system came to issue an incomplete journey exit charge it refused because the card was already negative. It has to be said that the whole issue was a quite rare edge case bringing together several features of the system.

 

[Belperpete]

Yes. Auto topup is triggered when you start a journey with less than £20 on your PAYG balance. The minimum auto topup is £10 which will reset your balance to just under £30.

Only Oyster. With contactless the system works out what fares you should have been charged and issues a request to your bank overnight. It also avoids the situation in the other thread by breaking an OSI if that avoids the maximum journey time being exceeded.

It will almost certainly avoid confrontation completely. The issue in the other thread was only because the first entry charge took the balance below zero so when the system came to issue an incomplete journey exit charge it refused because the card was already negative. It has to be said that the whole issue was a quite rare edge case bringing together several features of the system.

Thanks for your replies. A bit concerning that Oyster doesn't break the OSI in the same way that contactless does. If contactless can do it, surely Oyster should.

Thinking about this further. If you have just over £20 in your account, and then make an expensive journey (such as a peak time trip from Gatwick airport), that takes your balance below £20 (and perhaps even negative), this will obviously trigger auto top up. Will the auto top up come through in time, if you then get landed with one of these maximum fares on the same day?

 

[MikeWh]

Thanks for your replies. A bit concerning that Oyster doesn't break the OSI in the same way that contactless does. If contactless can do it, surely Oyster should.

Oyster is always working in real time. When you complete the OSI there is no way of knowing whether there will be a problem at the end of the journey.

Full adult journey data is put through the back office later and a credit will be activated if there has been a resolvable overcharge.

Thinking about this further. If you have just over £20 in your account, and then make an expensive journey (such as a peak time trip from Gatwick airport), that takes your balance below £20 (and perhaps even negative), this will obviously trigger auto top up. Will the auto top up come through in time, if you then get landed with one of these maximum fares on the same day?

Auto top up is applied when starting a journey with less than £20. What the system does is add your top up amount to your balance and create a charge record to process the debit from your linked bank card later on by the central system. So the top up is instantaneous when starting a journey.

I feel I should point out that the incident in the other thread is a very very unusual combination of events. It really is an edge case. It was further exacerbated by actions at the time. It really isn't something to worry about in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Hadders]

The minimum top up balance, and top up amount are both £20

If you have Auto-top up activated on your Oyster card then the card is automatically topped up once the balance drops below £20. You can set auto-top to add £10, £20 or £40 from your bank account.

If topping up at a ticket machine or Visitor Centre then the minimum top-up is £5. The minimum top-up at an Oyster ticket stop is £1.50.

 

[MikeWh]

The minimum top-up at an Oyster ticket stop is £1.50.

Didn't know that.

Ticket machines will do less than £5. On LU it adds whatever coins you insert. On NR you select "other amount" and you can enter anything from 5p upwards in multiples of 5p.

Also, if you have an odd balance from when riverboats charged an odd amount then a ticket stop will let you put any amount in so it brings it back to a round amount.

 

[Hadders]

Didn't know that.

Ticket machines will do less than £5. On LU it adds whatever coins you insert. On NR you select "other amount" and you can enter anything from 5p upwards in multiples of 5p.

Also, if you have an odd balance from when riverboats charged an odd amount then a ticket stop will let you put any amount in so it brings it back to a round amount.

It's buried in the section of the TfL website on 1st Generation Oyster Cards. The page has been updated reletively recently as it refers to the £7 charge for Oyster cards.

First-generation Oyster cards

Information on how to replace first-generation Oyster cards

tfl.gov.uk

Where to get an Oyster card	Minimum pay as you go credit
Online	£5
Visitor Centres	£5
Oyster ticket stops	£1.50
All Tube, London Overground and Elizabeth line stations	£5
Some DLR stations	£5
The Tramlink Shop, Croydon	£1.50

 

[MikeWh]

Interesting. You can definitely do odd small amounts at NR TVMs because I've done it many times.

 

[Hadders]

Interesting. You can definitely do odd small amounts at NR TVMs because I've done it many times.

On second thoughts, I wonder if that's the minimum amount the first time you top-up a new Oyster card?

 

[Mcv378]

On second thoughts, I wonder if that's the minimum amount the first time you top-up a new Oyster card?

When buying from a LU ticket machine you must top up a minimum of £5 first. However when buying an Oyster for a visiting friend from a shop, I've been able to load just £1 to activate the card.

 

[Belperpete]

Oyster is always working in real time. When you complete the OSI there is no way of knowing whether there will be a problem at the end of the journey.

Full adult journey data is put through the back office later and a credit will be activated if there has been a resolvable overcharge.

Auto top up is applied when starting a journey with less than £20. What the system does is add your top up amount to your balance and create a charge record to process the debit from your linked bank card later on by the central system. So the top up is instantaneous when starting a journey.

I feel I should point out that the incident in the other thread is a very very unusual combination of events. It really is an edge case. It was further exacerbated by actions at the time. It really isn't something to worry about in the grand scheme of things.

I have had such automatic resolutions a couple of times. Seems to work well.

So if you have only just over £20 on your balance, and travel from say Gatwick to zone 1, auto top up won't be triggered when you tap in, as your balance at that point is over £20. Then your balance would go negative when you tap out - and stay negative until you next tap in? And your negative balance wouldn't cause any issues using the Oyster card anywhere?

 

[MikeWh]

And your negative balance wouldn't cause any issues using the Oyster card anywhere?

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. The next use of the card will start a new journey which will cause an auto topup to happen. It's fine to have a negative balance between journeys. If you don't have auto topup set then the system won't allow you to start a new journey.

 

[jon81uk]

There does seem to be an obsession on this forum with avoiding the rare edge cases also happening to them....

 

[Foxhunter]

There does seem to be an obsession on this forum with avoiding the rare edge cases also happening to them....

Probably true, and probably related to the forum users having more knowledge than most of the imbalance of power when irregularities arise.

 

[Pushpit]

My record is £52. This came about at the Elizabeth Line station at Heathrow Terminal 5, which has a 30 minute service interval for much of the day. I knew I had about 15 minutes to wait until my service but it took me until about 35 minutes before I realised there was no service due a signalling fault on the spur. I tapped out of the station and soon got notification from my bank that the auto-top up was £60, twice the usual amount. If you leave a station after 30 minutes you are given a double maximum fare, and Heathrow EL shares a platform with the Heathrow Express. There was no issue getting it refunded other than quite a long call to TfL (20 minutes or so).

I also had a similar problem when on the Piccadilly line from Heathrow T5 to Hatton Cross, which is a free service. Again there was service interruption, the bus option is quite straightforward, but my mistake there was to leave the station within 2 minutes since that it results in one maximum fare. After 2 minutes it's the minimum fare (£1.90 in that case) which I'd chalk up to experience, but in my case it was £9.40. That took longer to resolve with TfL since the agent wanted to check there really was a service outage so as to enable delay repay - not understanding that delay repay was also 0 pence.

 

[Nottingham59]

There does seem to be an obsession on this forum with avoiding the rare edge cases also happening to them....

I would expect that the travel patterns of many on here would be vulnerable to inadvertant OSIs. When I take my son to London so he can video trains, we often take journeys that would exceed the maximum time. And often leave a station and enter another within the OSI time. Luckily I use paper Family Travelcards from Rugby, so the issue doesn't arise for us. But I would fear for him when he starts using Oyster by himself

 

[Belperpete]

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. The next use of the card will start a new journey which will cause an auto topup to happen. It's fine to have a negative balance between journeys. If you don't have auto topup set then the system won't allow you to start a new journey.

I had a vague recollection that there are some readers that aren't connected live to Oyster (buses?) and that might not therefore be able to generate an immediate auto top up?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Sep 2024 ==

My record is £52. This came about at the Elizabeth Line station at Heathrow Terminal 5, which has a 30 minute service interval for much of the day. I knew I had about 15 minutes to wait until my service but it took me until about 35 minutes before I realised there was no service due a signalling fault on the spur. I tapped out of the station and soon got notification from my bank that the auto-top up was £60, twice the usual amount. If you leave a station after 30 minutes you are given a double maximum fare, and Heathrow EL shares a platform with the Heathrow Express. There was no issue getting it refunded other than quite a long call to TfL (20 minutes or so).

I also had a similar problem when on the Piccadilly line from Heathrow T5 to Hatton Cross, which is a free service. Again there was service interruption, the bus option is quite straightforward, but my mistake there was to leave the station within 2 minutes since that it results in one maximum fare. After 2 minutes it's the minimum fare (£1.90 in that case) which I'd chalk up to experience, but in my case it was £9.40. That took longer to resolve with TfL since the agent wanted to check there really was a service outage so as to enable delay repay - not understanding that delay repay was also 0 pence.

I wonder how many of these maximum fare penalties go unnoticed by the people paying them? Most people don't bother checking their bank statements these days, and I doubt many bother checking their Oyster journey histories. You just pay the next top up when your balance gets low, or if you have auto top up then just another routine top up appears on the bank account. For example, how did you spot the second case? Surely it would have just looked like any other routine top up?

I seem to recall getting a notification from Oyster when I had an incomplete journey. Does it always send a notification when one of these maximum fare penalties is applied? Of course, it can only send a notification if you have set up an account, which I suspect many who manually top up don't bother with. Likewise for those using contactless, how do they get to know when one of these charges has been applied?

 

[Pushpit]

I wonder how many of these maximum fare penalties go unnoticed by the people paying them? Most people don't bother checking their bank statements these days, and I doubt many bother checking their Oyster journey histories. You just pay the next top up when your balance gets low, or if you have auto top up then just another routine top up appears on the bank account. For example, how did you spot the second case? Surely it would have just looked like any other routine top up?

The second event only happened a few weeks after the first, so I was then very much aware that tapping in then tapping out was problematic, so I did check it. I agree it's not at all intuitive and I imagine that particularly for the sub-30 minute versions the bulk of charges by TfL aren't merited.

 

[MikeWh]

I had a vague recollection that there are some readers that aren't connected live to Oyster (buses?) and that might not therefore be able to generate an immediate auto top up?

The adding the topup to the card takes place as part of touching in so has always been possible on buses. What wasn't possible was setting up auto topup on a bus because you couldn't know which bus you'd be using. In those days you had to nominate a physical station to collect from. Since they introduced faster universal load a few years ago it has not been a problem.

 

[Surreytraveller]

There does seem to be an obsession on this forum with avoiding the rare edge cases also happening to them....

The trouble is, a fair number of forum users will be edge cases, due to the nature of journeys forum users will be making

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Sep 2024 ==

Any RPI worth their salt would know the OSIs. Any RPI who wants to be worth their salt would realise their might be an OSI when looking at a journey history. A brilliant RPI would also resolve the two maximum fares there and then.
Accusing someone of fare dodging when they have done nothing of the sort, when the evidence is in front of them, is inexcusable.

Here's another case

Metropolitan Police officer fined for assaulting woman during bus fare arrest has conviction overturned

Ms Agyemang told the trial earlier this summer the incident was "deeply humiliating and embarrassing" and Mr Lathwood had a "look of contempt in his eyes".

news.sky.com

Ms Agyemang told the trial earlier this summer the incident was "deeply humiliating and embarrassing" and Mr Lathwood had a "look of contempt in his eyes".

 

[MikeWh]

A brilliant RPI would also resolve the two maximum fares there and then.

I doubt that a National Rail RPI has the ability to do that.

 

[Belperpete]

Accusing someone of fare dodging when they have done nothing of the sort, when the evidence is in front of them, is inexcusable.

Here's another case

Who is accusing anyone of fare dodging? I assume that you must be referring to the earlier thread, as I was not accused of fare dodging.

In the case you mention, the woman tried to walk away from the RPI wanting to check her ticket. The police officer stopped her and arrested her. He was wrongly convicted of assaulting her, but that has now been overturned. If people were just allowed to ignore ticket checks because they claim to have a valid ticket but are in a hurry and don't have time, then you might as well not bother checking tickets. To my mind, it was her that committed an offence, by not presenting proof of payment when challenged. If she had of stopped and done that, then the situation would not have escalated. If she hadn't of behaved like a fare dodger, then she wouldn't have been treated like one.

 

[DeverseSam]

Metropolitan Police officer fined for assaulting woman during bus fare arrest has conviction overturned

Ms Agyemang told the trial earlier this summer the incident was "deeply humiliating and embarrassing" and Mr Lathwood had a "look of contempt in his eyes".

news.sky.com

This thread is about OSIs - can someone getting off a bus have an OSI issue?

 

[Haywain]

This thread is about OSIs - can someone getting off a bus have an OSI issue?

No.