SWR Touch London Terminals not registering tap

[kevinchoi1997]

I've got a Tap2Go-enabled SWR Touch Smartcard, but I've bought a valid Anytime Day Single ticket from Farnborough to London Terminals, which was successfully loaded onto the Smartcard.

My route is Farnborough --> Waterloo, then Waterloo East --> London Bridge --> Cannon Street. Given that Cannon Street is a valid London Terminal according to the ticket, the ticket should be sufficient to cover my entire journey.

However, when I look at the journey history in my account online (see attached screenshot), it says that there is an incomplete journey with no tap-in, but a tap out at Waterloo - which seems to suggest that I didn't tap in at Farnborough, and therefore it'll charge me a £25 penalty fare.

In the same screenshot, it also seemed to suggest that it knows I tapped in at Farnborough (but at the incorrect time of 08:12, which is when I tapped in at Waterloo East instead), and then tapped out at Cannon Street at 08:31.

This is the second consecutive time it has happened, so my question is whether I did anything wrong? (I tapped in/out at each barrier as needed), and what to do to fix it to avoid being double-charged given that I have a valid ticket already?

 

[Haywain]

In the same screenshot, it also seemed to suggest that it knows I tapped in at Farnborough (but at the incorrect time of 08:12, which is when I tapped in at Waterloo East instead), and then tapped out at Cannon Street at 08:31.

No, it's showing that the taps at Waterloo East and Cannon Street were made using the Farnborough to London ticket.

This is the second consecutive time it has happened, so my question is whether I did anything wrong?

It appears that you didn't touch in at Farnborough or the tap hasn't been recorded (yet). Therefore it assumes a journey using Tap2Go (because the system cannot tell otherwise), rather than using the ticket.

 

[fandroid]

I've been afraid of such confusion myself so I've got SWR Tap2Go loaded on an SWR Touch card and use a GWR Touch card for loading tickets via the GWR app. My only justification for the latter is that the cards look distinctively different. The GWR app happily offers me smartcard tickets on the SWR network.

You could just apply for a second SWR Touch card, but mark it clearly so that the two don't get muddled up.

 

[kevinchoi1997]

It appears that you didn't touch in at Farnborough or the tap hasn't been recorded (yet). Therefore it assumes a journey using Tap2Go (because the system cannot tell otherwise), rather than using the ticket.

Gates are always closed in the morning peak so I definitely touched in, in order for the gates to open. So for some reason the taps didn't register. It's happened two consecutive times now, so I wonder if there's something wrong with the gates which means that it's not recording the taps.

You could just apply for a second SWR Touch card, but mark it clearly so that the two don't get muddled up.

Given that I don't really use Tap2Go often, I might just end up disabling it, so that I can only pre-load tickets to my SWR Touch card.

 

[OscarH]

So for some reason the taps didn't register. It's happened two consecutive times now, so I wonder if there's something wrong with the gates which means that it's not recording the taps.

This is quite common, or at least was last time I was using smartcards a few years ago. They just rather unreliable sometimes, and it does seem to go in bursts where one station will be particularly bad for recording taps for a while.