Randomly charged £60 penalty fare on metrolink - no notification given??? Help.

[dannypye9999]

I have today received a Google wallet notification informing me I've been charged the £60 penalty fare off metrolink after using them last Friday. I was making alot of journeys using touch in and out so didn't bother touching in or out afterwards as I knew I'd already met my daily cap. We had a ticket inspection at 22.30 at St. Peter square which I think triggered the penalty fare.

My issues are

1) Why am I being charged the penalty fare when I've met the daily cap? I've paid the equivalent to a zone 1 to 4 travel card. Touching in and out afterwards seems pretty pointless and a waste of time if youve met the daily cap.

2) Why wasn't i notified of such penalty fare upon inspection?. They just bleeped my device and said thankyou and moved on. Surely they should inform the passenger they're about to rob you blind, even since it could've been a genuine mistake rather than treating everyone like fare dodgers by default.

3) Why didn't I get a reference number to query the penalty?

4) Why is there nothing on the app to help you keep track of your touch ins and outs? They clearly have a record of your journeys on their bleepers so why is there nothing for the passenger to help keep them up to date with their journeys?

5) If this is their approach to just rob you blind off £60 without any word from an inspector, notification or authorisation using your card then this is a disgusting criminal act.


Hope someone can help and point me in the right direction

 

[Haywain]

Why am I being charged the penalty fare when I've met the daily cap?

Because you didn’t touch in. The daily cap isn’t relevant to that. I suggest you read this page which explains everything.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

@Mancboy. If you don't wish to bother touching in / out, you can always get one of those little yellow Day Travelcards from the TVM when starting your day's travel. Think I'm right in saying the fare's still the same.

 

[dannypye9999]

@Mancboy. If you don't wish to bother touching in / out, you can always get one of those little yellow Day Travelcards from the TVM when starting your day's travel. Think I'm right in saying the fare's still the same.

That gives them the right to take £60 out of your bank without your authorisation and with no word from the inspector to offer you the 14 days notice like it says on the app?

 

[Haywain]

That gives them the right to take £60 out of your bank without your authorisation and with no word from the inspector to offer you the 14 days notice like it says on the app?

So it would seem, although there is an option to appeal on that page.

 

[Mojo]

2) Why wasn't i notified of such penalty fare upon inspection?. They just bleeped my device and said thankyou and moved on. Surely they should inform the passenger they're about to rob you blind, even since it could've been a genuine mistake rather than treating everyone like fare dodgers by default.

If it's anything like on the TfL system I would suspect that the staff don't know whether you have touched in or not.

 

[etr221]

If it's anything like on the TfL system I would suspect that the staff don't know whether you have touched in or not.

... so when they touch, without a previous touch in, the system concludes (penalty) fare due. (Metrolink Ts & Cs, &c, may say more)

The underlying logic is - I think - that reaching the cap doesn't mean that no further fare is due, but that when a fare for another journey is due (and charged), it will be £0 (zero)

 

[Skymonster]

Seems pretty clear to me

Ticket inspections and penalty fares​

During ticket checks, present the card or device you used to touch in to the inspector’s ticket reader when asked. If you haven’t touched in before starting your journey (or you used a different card), we’ll charge:

• £60 to the card you present to the inspector or
• the full £120 penalty fare.
  

 

[Bletchleyite]

That gives them the right to take £60 out of your bank without your authorisation and with no word from the inspector to offer you the 14 days notice like it says on the app?

I can see why they've done it. Sadly Metrolink carries quite a lot of rather unsavoury characters, and so not having to issue the PF in person and take details probably saves their staff from a lot of assaults.

 

[scrapy]

I can see why they've done it. Sadly Metrolink carries quite a lot of rather unsavoury characters, and so not having to issue the PF in person and take details probably saves their staff from a lot of assaults.

I think its more that the inspectors devices aren't always live and don't have to communicate with the system after every tap, so won't know if a device has tapped in. This gets synced later on and the penalty is then taken if applicable.

The unsavoury characters will simply present a card with no funds on, or just refuse to comply.

 

[dannypye9999]

Seems pretty clear to me

You have 14 days to pay the £60 before it becomes £120 am I correct? Just because I gave them my card details doesn't entitle them to snatch £60 without authorisation or without issuing a notice of a penalty.

 

[scrapy]

That gives them the right to take £60 out of your bank without your authorisation and with no word from the inspector to offer you the 14 days notice like it says on the app?

By choosing to travel (and thus agreeing to the conditions of carriage) and presenting a contactless card that hasn't been tapped in, you are authorising them to take this. I believe you still have a right of appeal and can contact them to do this. If your appeal is successful you get a refund.

 

[Skymonster]

Metrolink has done exactly what it says it will do - see above. And the Ts&Cs certainly don‘t say once a passenger has reached the cap they don’t need to bother touching in or out again for the rest of the day. OP could I supposed appeal to TfGM’s better nature based on having reached the cap, but in reality they are “banged to rights” and the operator has done nothing wrong.

 

[Any_Permitted]

I have today received a Google wallet notification informing me I've been charged the £60 penalty fare off metrolink after using them last Friday. I was making alot of journeys using touch in and out so didn't bother touching in or out afterwards as I knew I'd already met my daily cap. We had a ticket inspection at 22.30 at St. Peter square which I think triggered the penalty fare.

My issues are

1) Why am I being charged the penalty fare when I've met the daily cap? I've paid the equivalent to a zone 1 to 4 travel card. Touching in and out afterwards seems pretty pointless and a waste of time if youve met the daily cap.

2) Why wasn't i notified of such penalty fare upon inspection?. They just bleeped my device and said thankyou and moved on. Surely they should inform the passenger they're about to rob you blind, even since it could've been a genuine mistake rather than treating everyone like fare dodgers by default.

3) Why didn't I get a reference number to query the penalty?

4) Why is there nothing on the app to help you keep track of your touch ins and outs? They clearly have a record of your journeys on their bleepers so why is there nothing for the passenger to help keep them up to date with their journeys?

5) If this is their approach to just rob you blind off £60 without any word from an inspector, notification or authorisation using your card then this is a disgusting criminal act.


Hope someone can help and point me in the right direction

Hi, Metrolink commuter here, in response to your issues:

1) With contactless you have to tap in and out for every journey, even if you reach the daily cap. This does seem unfair if you've reached the cap, but it is in the conditions of carriage.

2) and 3) and 4) The system is not powerful enough to instantly collect data from the readers at the stations and the ones inspectors carry. The readers also cannot write data to a bank card. Thus when you tap your card on the inspector's reader, they can only see if it has been blocked for travel. No-one knows if you touched in until the end of the day when all the data gets processed. If there is a touch on an inspector's reader but no touch in immediately before that, the £60 is automatically charged. This is also why the app cannot tell you if you have touched in, the data doesn't get downloaded until the end of the day.

5) I agree this is frustrating. While contactless is a welcome addition, I do prefer to buy a paper travelcard from the machine. Then it sits in my pocket all day and I don't have to worry about touching in or out. I've paid enough incomplete journey fares by forgetting to tap out as there are no barriers to remind me!

My recommendation is to submit an appeal for the contactless standard fare on TFGM's website, setting out that you had reached the daily cap for all zones and mistakenly thought that meant you didn't have to touch in. You are in breach of the conditions of carriage and there are a lot of signs warning you to touch in for every journey, but have nothing to lose by appealing. Feel free to post a draft appeal here if you want comments.

 

[Lewisham2221]

You have 14 days to pay the £60 before it becomes £120 am I correct? Just because I gave them my card details doesn't entitle them to snatch £60 without authorisation or without issuing a notice of a penalty.

Actually, as per the Conditions of Carriage, it does:

79.The passenger must be prepared to show the method used to touch in for Contactless Payment and/or allow an authorised member of staff or a police officer to inspect their method of Contactless Payment on any journey. The passenger might be asked to touch the method of Contactless Payment on the inspection device as part of the inspection and:

a. if, during such inspection, the inspection device shows a 'Card Not Accepted' message to the inspector, the passenger will be treated as not having touched in successfully, and the inspector will be entitled to write out a ticket for the appropriate Standard Fare (Penalty Fare); and

b. TfGM may charge passengers with a contactless standard fare of £60 if, as a result of such inspection, TfGM becomes aware that (i) they did not successfully touch in, or (ii) they did not validly touch in with the method of Contactless Payment presented for inspection. This amount will be taken from passenger's card issuer/bank account within 48 hours, and by presenting a method of Contactless Payment to the inspection device, the passenger is giving authorisation for the contactless Standard Fare (Penalty Fare) to be charged to the passenger’s card issuer/bank account, if either of the circumstance set out in this condition apply.

79A. If a passenger wishes to appeal against the issue of a contactless Standard Fare, the passenger must check the circumstances in which an appeal may be permitted, as set out on TfGM's Standard Fare (Penalty Fare) webpage. If circumstances apply where an appeal may be permitted, the passenger must complete the online form that can be accessed via the same webpage. A passenger may only appeal against a contactless standard fare within 3 months of its issue.

You have 3 months to appeal, although I wouldn't hold out for much hope of succeeding.

 

[signed]

If it's anything like on the TfL system I would suspect that the staff don't know whether you have touched in or not.

Don't TfL readers track the maximum fare that is transite after touching in and removed after touch out. Or is it Oyster-only?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Don't TfL readers track the maximum fare that is transite after touching in and removed after touch out

TfL readers write to Oyster cards, whereas contactless is worked out in the backoffice each evening and they can't tell that someone has touched in when they inspect. The exception is buses where the ticket machine can tell them that.

 

[Mojo]

Don't TfL readers track the maximum fare that is transite after touching in and removed after touch out. Or is it Oyster-only?

With an Oyster card, the Inspector can check straight away whether the card has been touched in or not, as this is stored locally on the card. If not, then they would proceed down the line of issuing a Penalty fare / prosecution report / fare paid.

With Contactless on Rail modes, they can only check whether the card is valid for travel (eg. not hotlisted / not expired), not whether if the customer has touched in. If they haven't touched in and are then subjected to a revenue inspection, then during the overnight processing they will be subject to the Maximum fare.

 

[signed]

Thank you both for the information

 

[dannypye9999]

With an Oyster card, the Inspector can check straight away whether the card has been touched in or not, as this is stored locally on the card. If not, then they would proceed down the line of issuing a Penalty fare / prosecution report / fare paid.

With Contactless on Rail modes, they can only check whether the card is valid for travel (eg. not hotlisted / not expired), not whether if the customer has touched in. If they haven't touched in and are then subjected to a revenue inspection, then during the overnight processing they will be subject to the Maximum fare.

Aha seems to be the reason why i was notified at 5.30am in the morning and not at the time of inspection as it was being calculated manually in an office.

 

[Par]

I agree this is frustrating. While contactless is a welcome addition, I do prefer to buy a paper travelcard from the machine. Then it sits in my pocket all day and I don't have to worry about touching in or out. I've paid enough incomplete journey fares by forgetting to tap out as there are no barriers to remind me!

I’m exactly the same. After about 20 years of using Metrolink without the contactless readers, I’ve found it difficult to get into the habit of tapping in and out at the un-barriered stops.

The one-day Travelcard that you could previously buy on the app was perfect for me. The withdrawal of those has made it both less convenient and sometimes more expensive, but those were canned to deal with the “pay when challenged“ brigade, so I don’t imagine they’ll be coming back anytime soon?

I’m back to paper tickets now, which really seems like a backwards step.

 

[dannypye9999]

I’m exactly the same. After about 20 years of using Metrolink without the contactless readers, I’ve found it difficult to get into the habit of tapping in and out at the un-barriered stops.

The one-day Travelcard that you could previously buy on the app was perfect for me. The withdrawal of those has made it both less convenient and sometimes more expensive, but those were canned to deal with the “pay when challenged“ brigade, so I don’t imagine they’ll be coming back anytime soon?

I’m back to paper tickets now, which really seems like a backwards step.

I did download my journey history for that day and found I had an extra £4.60 put on top of the cap for an "incomplete journey". And the penalty fare must've been issued because I didn't "touch out" within the required two hours of "touching in".

The system appears to be designed to rob the passenger. You can easily forget if you need to touch in or out at a stop if your using the trams for the enjoyment of travel, having information on your app of all your journey activity would be helpful and could avoid these penalties. But I guess they purposely don't want to give people this info for the very reason its easier to take money off people this way.... Those metrolink inspectors should wear masks because Dick Turpin wore one while out robbing people!

 

[signed]

But I guess they purposely don't want to give people this info for the very reason its easier to take money off people this way....

It can't happen with bank cards, there aren't the technical means in place for such thing.

Any processing is done after the end of the day in one sweep, else there is no way to give you caps, and adjust fares on the fly. The only thing they could maybe do is give you tap-in/tap-out without anymore information, but that would probably come very delayed.

The only way that can happen is with a specific card engineered for it, like Oyster, which does processing on the fly and writes to the card itself.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

What's really poor is the lack of indication when tapping as to whether you're tapping in or out. Some of the waits on more poorly served branches can be quite long, and if I tap in when I arrive at the tram stop, 15 minutes later as the tram approaches I'm left trying to remember if I did tap in or not. Tapping again, in most situations, would cause you to tap out and it would show "Tapped Out," therefore I'd know to tap back in.

If I hadn't tapped in earlier, I'd see "Tapped In" and know I was good to go. As it currently stands, it's a case of do I get on the tram and risk not being tapped in and liable to a fare on board, or do I tap again now and if I had already tapped risk now being tapped out, and again liable to a fare on board.

It's surely fairly simple to update the readers to just show "IN" when tapping in and "OUT" when tapping out.

 

[800001]

I did download my journey history for that day and found I had an extra £4.60 put on top of the cap for an "incomplete journey". And the penalty fare must've been issued because I didn't "touch out" within the required two hours of "touching in".

The system appears to be designed to rob the passenger. You can easily forget if you need to touch in or out at a stop if your using the trams for the enjoyment of travel, having information on your app of all your journey activity would be helpful and could avoid these penalties. But I guess they purposely don't want to give people this info for the very reason its easier to take money off people this way.... Those metrolink inspectors should wear masks because Dick Turpin wore one while out robbing people!

I’m sorry, but you failed to tap in/out for your journeys? There are signs all over stating of must do so.
You knew you had to as you did it until you reached the daily cap.

No business will purposely design a system to ‘rob the passenger’.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What's really poor is the lack of indication when tapping as to whether you're tapping in or out. Some of the waits on more poorly served branches can be quite long, and if I tap in when I arrive at the tram stop, 15 minutes later as the tram approaches I'm left trying to remember if I did tap in or not. Tapping again, in most situations, would cause you to tap out and it would show "Tapped Out," therefore I'd know to tap back in.

You know that, like the Tube, you don't need to tap in and out for each vehicle journey, just at the start and end of your complete trip?

I do agree it'd be nice if it said that clearly though, having said that I doubt the way it works it's possible.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Those metrolink inspectors should wear masks because Dick Turpin wore one while out robbing people!

My main gripe with them is that they join a train at Cornbrook and then refuse to let the tram leave until they've checked everyone. On a busy tram that can take ages, and it's not good enough. If they want to do that, they can travel with us to Deansgate. There are FOURTY EIGHT trams per hour travelling towards the city on that one track that begin stacking up outside, and I don't appreciate the delay as a passenger either.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2024 ==

You know that, like the Tube, you don't need to tap in and out for each vehicle journey, just at the start and end of your complete trip?

I do agree it'd be nice if it said that clearly though, having said that I doubt the way it works it's possible.

Of course I do. The point is, if I tap in as I arrive at Langworthy to begin my journey, something I usually do subconsciously without really thinking, fifteen minutes later when the tram arrives I sometimes wonder if I did definitely do it.

 

[800001]

What's really poor is the lack of indication when tapping as to whether you're tapping in or out. Some of the waits on more poorly served branches can be quite long, and if I tap in when I arrive at the tram stop, 15 minutes later as the tram approaches I'm left trying to remember if I did tap in or not. Tapping again, in most situations, would cause you to tap out and it would show "Tapped Out," therefore I'd know to tap back in.

If I hadn't tapped in earlier, I'd see "Tapped In" and know I was good to go. As it currently stands, it's a case of do I get on the tram and risk not being tapped in and liable to a fare on board, or do I tap again now and if I had already tapped risk now being tapped out, and again liable to a fare on board.

It's surely fairly simple to update the readers to just show "IN" when tapping in and "OUT" when tapping out.

You would think with the modern technology they could display in/out like you suggest.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

You would think with the modern technology they could display in/out like you suggest.

It would help. They should also let you reverse the tap on for a certain time after doing so, which they do in Sydney. I forget if they do in London or not as I almost always just use a travelcard. As it stands, tapping in and then tapping off at the same reader ten minutes later (say trams became suddenly delayed and you didn't want to use the network anymore) will confuse the system and result in a maximum fare charge.

And when you call them to sort that, you get guilted with the ever-infuriating "I'll refund it this once but please bear in mind and remember that I'm choosing to do this for you from my own discretion, and we may not always be so understanding."

 

[Kite159]

I’m exactly the same. After about 20 years of using Metrolink without the contactless readers, I’ve found it difficult to get into the habit of tapping in and out at the un-barriered stops.

The one-day Travelcard that you could previously buy on the app was perfect for me. The withdrawal of those has made it both less convenient and sometimes more expensive, but those were canned to deal with the “pay when challenged“ brigade, so I don’t imagine they’ll be coming back anytime soon?

I’m back to paper tickets now, which really seems like a backwards step.

Isn't there a foreign operator which have similar daily tickets on a phone, but you need to wait something like 5 minutes after purchasing before it becomes valid? Maybe that is an area TfGM could use as it would counteract those who see inspectors boarding and go "oh fudge" and buys a ticket when on the tram before the inspector reaches them.

I suspect the issue with contactless on Metrolink is remembering to touch out, as the other tram operators which have contactless readers to board (Nottingham/Croydon) are a set fare so you don't need to touch out.