Great Western Coffee Shop

This evening I travelled from Acton Main Line up to Greenford, to join the Central Line.  I allowed five minutes between arriving and the train departing - plenty of time.

The TVMs (two S&B machines, in a mini bus shelter type canopy) were both working, in that holding my Oyster card on the reader displayed my balance.  However as the screen was wet, nothing happened when I touched the screen.  No matter where I hit the screen, nothing happened, except when I managed to get "Start Again" to work ::)

I had enough credit to cover the minimum fare, so the system let me "touch in".  I topped up at my destination before "touching out", luckily the destination station has an ungated side entrance with an adjacent TVM.

Question is ... what should I have done if I couldn't touch in because my Oyster card didn't have enough credit for the minimum fare and the TVM wouldn't work?  Find an Oyster Ticket Stop and miss my train?  Phone FGW to seek advice and miss my train?  Not touch in and risk a penalty fare or prosecution?  There are no guards on these FGW trains, so talking to them before boarding is not a possibility.

In a similar vein, my wife took one of our Oyster cards for a trip to Londonshire last week. 

This morning I have received an email from TFL telling me that the card is owed a refund of ^ 2.80 owing to a technical error, and that to claim it we need to 'touch in' at Kings Cross, hardly practical from Lostwithiel.

I have emailed TFL, and await their response.....

That is quite a common problem for visitors to London.  After 8 days, the credit will expire and you will get an email.  Keep the email and click the link a few days before your next visit to London, where you can select a station to pick up the credit from.

The system really isn't perfect, especially for infrequent travellers.

I had a similar problem to Brucey a while ago.

I started my journey from Chalkwell and the ticket machine at the station was broken and ticket office closed. So I boarded the train into London and conducted the planned journey. Arriving at West Ham there were no staff on the barriers so I couldn't access the ticket machines there either. So continued to Waterloo effectively risking an Penalty Fare. However as the facilities were not available at Chalkwell I was reasonably confident that even if I were approached by revenue I'd be ok.

Anyway I got to Waterloo and went to Excess Fares to explain myself and was charged ^4.00 for a Zone 3 - Zone 1 Single. When I queried the part between Chalkwell and West Ham the chap in the LU ticket office said and I quote "That's their loss" and I was allowed on my way.

---

That being said I also had an issue with my OysterCard when I touched in at Upminster (Straight out of a c2c train and back into the same train again). It occured to me that I might not have the funds for the journey I was making. In this case Zone 6 - Zone 1. So I attempted a topup online at the TfL website which was a nightmare from a phone on its own without the poor signal issues.

Eventually I secured a ^10.00 topup but had to collect it at Paddington on my way out rather than credit straight to the card. As it turned out I had more than sufficient funds so it was a baseless panic. But I wanted to be able to demonstrate I had made more than reasonable attempts to rectify the situation if I didn't have sufficient balance for the fare. But thankfully I needn't have panicked ;D

I have asked my original question to FGW on their Facebook page.  Link to post on Facebook. (https://www.facebook.com/FirstGreatWestern/posts/10151891049406806)