Stagecoach pricing blunder

[londonbridge]

Can't see this one posted:

Bus ticket price blunder delights passengers

The annual £1,320 go-anywhere MegaRider Gold was being sold online at the weekend for just £13.20 - and passengers went wild

www.devonlive.com

Stagecoach blunder cuts ticket prices by £1,000

The annual £1,320 go-anywhere MegaRider Gold was being sold online at the weekend for just £13.20 - and passengers went wild

Bus passengers went into a frenzy at the weekend when Stagecoach South West annual MegaRider tickets accidentally went on sale at up to £1,000 less than their true value.

Word spread quickly on social media and some people began buying up multiple tickets for re-sale after the online App reduced prices to just 10 per cent of their real price - saving passengers up to £1,000 a year. The MegaRider Gold bus pass which gives unlimited travel across the whole South West for a year should cost £1,320 - but instead customers were grabbing the bus pass for just £13.20 on the online ticketing system.

Also the Torbay MegaRider which is £891 for 52 weeks was £8.91. One of those who took advantage of the administrative error was Aaron Lees whose wife spends £20 a week on bus fares. After his wife saved snapped up a Torbay MegaRider 52 week bus pass for just £8.91 Aaron decided to buy a few more: "Myself being a businessman thought I could buy a load of them and sell them on really cheap to anyone that missed out."
Stagecoach South West quickly spotted the blunder and took "immediate steps" to correct the mistake. But the bad news is that the bus company now says they are contacting customers to tell them the tickets are not valid.

However, Aaron believes Stagecoach will have to honour the deal. He said: "I was woken up Saturday morning by my mother-in-law telling my Mrs that Stagecoach have messed up their prices and they will have to send the ticket and honour it.

"This was great news as my Mrs gets the bus to work and spends £20 per week on it so you could imagine this was great to hear. Now here I am hoping I can sell the few tickets I have as it will help people loads."
A Stagecoach South West spokesperson said: "We discovered an administrative error in our online ticketing system which means that some annual tickets were sold for a fraction of their true price. We have taken immediate steps to put right this unintentional mistake and the tickets will appear at the correct rate on our website shortly.

"We are contacting the customers affected to let them know that the incorrectly priced tickets are not valid. However, as a gesture of goodwill, we have offered them the opportunity to continue using the passes for the next month on unlimited journeys, equivalent to travel for less than 30p a day.

Alternatively, customers can get a full refund. "Our range of tickets, including annual passes, offer good value and are designed to ensure that people can get the travel they need for the best price."

 

[Peter Philips]

Can't see this one posted:

Bus ticket price blunder delights passengers

The annual £1,320 go-anywhere MegaRider Gold was being sold online at the weekend for just £13.20 - and passengers went wild

www.devonlive.com

​

Conversely many App fares were raised as per the approximately 10% on bus fare hike in error to start with, there were numerous complaints. There were also complaints about the App crashing with passengers unable to use their tickets and having to buy new ones onboard.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Conversely many App fares were raised as per the approximately 10% on bus fare hike in error to start with, there were numerous complaints. There were also complaints about the App crashing with passengers unable to use their tickets and having to buy new ones onboard.

Given that most bus companies now use Ticketer which does e-tickets via barcode scans in more or less the exact same way as the railway, I don't entirely see why they don't avoid these app problems by just sending a PDF as the railway does.

 

[alistairlees]

The annual £1,320 go-anywhere MegaRider Gold was being sold online at the weekend for just £13.20 - and passengers went wild

Word spread quickly on social media and some people began buying up multiple tickets for re-sale after the online App reduced prices to just 10 per cent of their real price - saving passengers up to £1,000 a year. The MegaRider Gold bus pass which gives unlimited travel across the whole South West for a year should cost £1,320 - but instead customers were grabbing the bus pass for just £13.20 on the online ticketing system.

Also the Torbay MegaRider which is £891 for 52 weeks was £8.91.

Seems like local journalists can't do basic maths - they were actually 1% of the correct price.

 

[markymark2000]

Given that most bus companies now use Ticketer which does e-tickets via barcode scans in more or less the exact same way as the railway, I don't entirely see why they don't avoid these app problems by just sending a PDF as the railway does.

That would work however there is one issue. a PDF can be sent onwards to multiple people to use the same code. On a phone, when you click 'activate', the ticket kind of downloads and locks to that device so no one else can use it unless they have your phone.

 

[alistairlees]

That would work however there is one issue. a PDF can be sent onwards to multiple people to use the same code. On a phone, when you click 'activate', the ticket kind of downloads and locks to that device so no one else can use it unless they have your phone.

Database, you just need a database...

 

[C96]

Database, you just need a database...

How does a database stop two different people using the same ticket but at different times of the day.

 

[alistairlees]

How does a database stop two different people using the same ticket but at different times of the day.

The barcode is checked against the database. If the ticket is already used it is recorded in the database. If the ticket is presented again it is rejected.

 

[C96]

The barcode is checked against the database. If the ticket is already used it is recorded in the database. If the ticket is presented again it is rejected.

But we are talking about a yearly pass (unlimited travel), not a single journey ticket.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The barcode is checked against the database. If the ticket is already used it is recorded in the database. If the ticket is presented again it is rejected.

Isn't this exactly how Ticketer works? Otherwise what's the point in the barcodes?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Mar 2022 ==

But we are talking about a yearly pass (unlimited travel), not a single journey ticket.

We'd gone off on a bit of a tangent to discuss tickets purchased in the app. Anyone buying a £1000+ ticket in an app with no additional security that it won't just disappear wants their head examining. Annuals really need to be on a smartcard with a paper receipt.

 

[markymark2000]

Isn't this exactly how Ticketer works? Otherwise what's the point in the barcodes?

a physical ticket is harder to switch between people than a PDF. To pass over a physical ticket, you need to get it to someone so they can use it or you need to photocopy the ticket but that comes with it's own issues. A PDF can be easily sent to thousands of people in seconds (perhaps an exaggeration but the point remains, it's so easy to send to someone else


Also, a lot of Ticketers way of working was (maybe still is) using discouragement for ticketless travel. The scanners didn't always work how you would expect them to. It's a phycological thing, if you scan a QR code, you think computers in the cloud will stop passbacks and invalid travel. That isn't always the case. It is in some cases but not all.