Ticket Unreadable by Barriers

As part of my company's travel policy I have to use their online travel provider's website to book tickets which then get billed back directly to my company. I usually use Ticket On Demand to pick up at my local stations.

However, every time I do this at different stations and different TVM's, the tickets subsequently fail to operate the barriers at any station I go to. The stations I get on at have no entrance barriers so I don't get a chance to check this at my origin station.

Does anyone have any idea why this is or how I can fix it? It's not a massive problem if I am doing a single rail journey but if I need to cross London or use a travelcard it's a pain in the bum having to go to the manual gate each time. Interestingly, if I order in enough time to get the tickets posted out to me I have no issues.

I don't know where you usually travel, but there is an issue with barriers at LNR stations and Super Off Peak tickets - last time I checked no Super Off Peak ticket operated the barriers at any LNR station.

Other than that - are you putting them next to something magnetic and wiping them, e.g. the compass in your phone?

Do you definitely mean Unreadable (the gate will show a code 07 or 09 somewhere on the display) or just "The gate doesn't open" which means the gate and the ticket have differing views on the ticket's validity?

Do you keep the tickets next to something that may be magnetic, such as a phone case that has a magnetic catch?

Are the tickets issued with a corporate discount applied to the fare? It could be that the discount code is not programmed into most gatelines (there are now more discount codes than can be programmed into the space available on the mag stripe).

It'll probably just be poor programming of the barriers. It doesn't mean that the ticket is invalid. Simply ask to be let through manually.

For example the barriers at my local station are set to reject all Advance tickets. Railcard discounted super off peak travelcards never work the barriers at Paddington in my experience.