TfL declined payment-banking issue.

[londonbridge]

Got up this morning and found a notification from my banking app, “there was a technical glitch which prevented your payment of £5.25 from being made. Please try to make the payment again”. Alongside was an email from TFL saying my card was blocked as it declined when they tried to collect yesterdays fares, and saying contact your card issuer to resolve the issue, once done you will need to resubmit payment before your card can be used.

Logged into my contactless account and clicked on approve card. Followed the instructions and it said your card has been approved, please allow thirty minutes for a systems to update before attempting to travel with this card. £5.25 was now showing as a pending transaction on my bank account, rather than as a declined payment. Almost immediately I received an email saying your card is now approved for travel.

Got ready for work, walked to the bus stop. Tapped in, some forty minutes after the above events, reader double beeped and display said “card not available”, but the driver waved me on. Finished my shift, got on the bus home, tapped in normally with no issues.

I may or may not get charged for my journey into work this morning, but I just wondered if this was a one-off, or has anyone else had any issues with yesterdays contactless payments, which might indicate a more widespread issue with Barclays or Visa payment systems.

 

[Trainbike46]

I'm not an expert, but my guess would be that your card was unblocked after the bus in the morning had last updated its list of blocked cards before your card was unblocked, so your card was rejected.

 

[MikeWh]

Buses should get updated within 30 minutes like stations, but if the bus is in a poor signal area it might take a bit longer. I think it's unlikely that you'll be charged for the first journey.

 

[londonbridge]

Thanks for responses. My main point and concern was whether this was a one off technical failure on the part of my bank, or whether others had had payments from yesterday declined, which might indicate a more widespread issue. It would appear, however, to be the former.

 

[Olivine]

Same again for me end of last week. Got a shirty debt email even though I’ve been using contactless with them for the last 10-12 years.

 

[MikeWh]

Something has definitely gone wrong somewhere, but whether it's TfL or a bank is unclear. A visitor to my site had travel from Saturday taken on Sunday and again on Monday this week.

 

[londonbridge]

Maybe I spoke too soon. I’d done a brief search on the ‘net for reports of others suffering issues but couldn’t see anything, hence my post late last night that it looked like a one off. This morning my card has declined again for the £1.75 from yesterday for the journey home (the morning journey wasn’t on my travel history as suggested. Been on the website and submitted £1.75 which, again, is now on my account as pending. Card still showing on my account as blocked. Got on the bus to work this morning and have tapped in with my phone. Will remember to use it again when going home and we’ll see if this payment clears. If I get another declined email tomorrow I’ll get on to the bank.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Jul 2026 ==

A brief update. Used apple pay for the bus journeys to work and back yesterday and the payment appears to have been processed correctly, so I’ve used it again for today’s travel. Meanwhile the £5:25 from Wednesday and the £1.75 from Thursday which I resubmitted are still showing on my bank account as pending and my card is still showing in my TfL account as unable to travel.

I’d never used apple pay on TFL before as I’ve always preferred to use my physical card in order to remove the risk of battery/phone failure (or indeed loss or theft of phone) in the middle of a journey. Of course, using it yesterday has created a separate card on my account, two entries both relating to the same card, one saying unable to travel, the other saying ready for travel…..

Presumably the £7 outstanding won’t now clear from my account until Monday (if it does), so looks like I’m gonna have to continue using Apple Pay until the issue of why payments from my physical card are declining is resolved. All payments to other retailers using the physical card are processing correctly so the problem would appear to lie with TFL.

edit: sorry, forgot about double post prevention as no one had replied since my previous post yesterday.

 

[MikeWh]

OK, I'll prevent another double post.

There is definitely something strange going on. In addition to the visitor to my site who is waiting for a response from TfL, my wife made a journey on Wednesday. This appeared on the card account as a pending transaction on Thursday, and is still pending today. I will chase for a response to my query on Monday.

 

[teaspoon]

Just to add a bit of anecdata: I received an email from TfL on the 12th, claiming a payment had been declined by my bank, when it didn't appear to have been. I did have to contact them to unblock it from further use - and the one bus journey I've made since has been fine.

 

[londonbridge]

Cheers, I’ll post another update tomorrow.

Update: been on the phone with TFL but haven’t really got anywhere. He could see £1.75 from last Thursday outstanding on my account and said he’d try charging it again but it still won’t go through. He’s tried to charge it four times and I’ve now got four emails saying card declined. He said they’ll keep trying to charge it and that it should go through eventually. Meanwhile he’s told me to continue to use Applepay and to phone them back in two days if it still hasn’t cleared.

When I asked about the £5.25 from last Wednesday he said that one has cleared and processed okay, in my TfL account it’s showing in payment history, but in my online banking it is still showing as a pending transaction……as is the £1.75……meanwhile, as I type, the email with the customer satisfaction survey and feedback request has just landed in my inbox……

Update 31/07. The £5.25 from Wednesday 22nd, which they said had been processed, has dropped off the “pending” list and has been added back to my available balance.

Hopefully a final update, still no idea what went wrong but card now appears to be working again and I got a days travel for free…..Will repost the whole saga on @MikeWh Oyster and contactless site.