All the evening peak contactless fares from the Sevenoaks area Southeastern stations (Sevenoaks, Dunton Green, Bat & Ball, Otford, etc) to Zone 1 were set on the TfL system as peak rate: that is what the TfL fare finder said and that is what passengers using contactless have been charged. The Sevenoaks Rail Travellers Association noticed this shortly after the introduction of contactless fares. Although Southeastern (who correctly charge the off-peak fare for a paper ticket into Zone 1 in the evening peak) said that this was a mistake at TfL and that they would raise it with them, and we also raised it directly with TfL at the time, the TfL Fare Finder continued to show Sevenoaks to Zone 1 as a peak rate fare in the evening peak, and the appeals of a number of passengers to TfL have all been refused.
The local MP Laura Trott has become involved and she reported yesterday on Facebook [1] that:
Following my letter to the Transport Minister and yesterday’s Facebook post, the Deputy Mayor of London for Transport has now responded to me regarding the Contactless overcharging from Sevenoaks stations into London between 4pm and 7pm.
He has admitted there was a charging error, which he says was fixed in early June, and claims TfL is looking into how affected passengers can be refunded automatically.
While he says customers can contact TfL’s customer services for a refund, I’ve tested this today — and they are still wrongly insisting the higher charge was (and is) correct. This is simply not good enough.
I also still have serious questions about who knew what and when — and why it took my intervention for this issue to be acknowledged. Right now, my focus is on making sure TfL fixes its customer service response and puts a proper refund process in place for everyone affected. However, I will be revisiting these questions so we can get to the bottom of what’s happened.
The TfL Fare Finder now correctly shows Sevenoaks to Zone 1 as a peak fare only 0630 to 0930.
TfL say that they are “looking into” automatic refunds. However given the refusal of TfL to generate automatic refunds in the Reading case discussed elsewhere on this site we do not hold out much hope for TfL doing so for Sevenoaks. Nevertheless it is good that the MP has promised to pursue this.