The news over the last couple of days has been full of stories about a fraudster who scammed thousands out of users when processing top-ups in his newsagent shop. As is usual in cases like this, the journalists have tried to explain what happened, but so far they have spectacularly failed to get it right. This may be down to TfL not wanting the exact procedure to be made public in case other shops try it as well; or it could be that not enough care has been taken understanding the issues. It does leave confidence in the system seriously compromised, which is a problem for honest shopkeepers who may now see a drop in activity.
General News
New pink validators
The pink readers at Clapham Junction and Surrey Quays are now live. More later.
New Route Validators
I have heard from a reliable source that pink route validators will shortly be installed at both Clapham Junction and Surrey Quays. I’ll add more info (like when) as soon as I hear it. Update: September 7th The new fares are included in the normal fares update from tomorrow (8th Sept). It’s not clear when … Read more
New helpdesk number
The Oyster helpline can now be reached via the TfL main number which is 0343 222 1234. This is treated like 01 and 02 numbers for inclusion into free minutes on mobile and landline plans. The Oyster helpline is under option 1 on the initial menu, along with ticketing and contactless payment. Remember that Oyster … Read more
New Page – An Oyster Rail Journey
A new page has been added to the site today describing in detail what happens as you make a rail journey using Oyster. It’s very much a first draft based on my extensive experiences of using the system, but if anyone in the know spots an error or misunderstanding then I’ll happily update it.
New “Low Balance” display
Since the beginning of July there has been a slight change to the display when you touch in or out. I’m still trying to get full details, but this is what I’ve worked out so far. Whenever you touch in and your balance is below the maximum journey charge the system will display a “Low Balance” warning message. This also happens on touch out. There appears to be account taken of whether you have already capped or are close to doing so, certainly on touch in but possibly also on touch out. If you have auto top-up enabled then it is unlikely that you will see this warning as the top-up will happen before it decides whether to display it.
This isn’t all good news though.
Happy 10th Birthday Oyster
Yesterday (30th June) saw the 10th anniversary of the introduction of London’s Oyster card. Originally it was a medium to store travelcards and bus passes with pay-as-you-go introduced in 2004 but only valid at Underground and DLR stations (plus a limited number of inter-available National Rail stations where routes run in parallel with Underground lines). … Read more
Weekly Journey History not run
Thanks to regular visitor Phil who spotted that the normal Monday distribution of weekly journey statements had not run this week. According to the helpdesk there was a problem which meant Oyster online was unavailable for some of Monday. It appears that this included the time when the statements are generated. Hopefully they will now … Read more
Spam protection measures
With a heavy heart I have decided to add a captcha test on registrations and comments on this site. The number of spam comments received each day had risen dramatically over the last few months although they were being properly detected by the Akismet plugin. Unfortunately the last few days has seen a meteoric rise … Read more
Oyster Smart – Videos on YouTube
TfL have just uploaded three videos to YouTube about being Oyster Smart. I’ve got to say they are quite succinct in explaining the basics and well worth a watch. Here they are: