Autocomplete vs Incomplete

When there is a missing Oyster/contactless touch I sometimes wonder how TFL decide whether to autocomplete the journey or charge a maximum fare and invite you to supply the missing information? In both cases below the barrier opened and I believed I had touched in/out correctly

Case 1. Monday morning. 157 bus, 93 bus, Wimbledon district line to Southfields. Monday evening. Unknown-Wimbledon district line, 93 bus, 157 bus. Incomplete journey charged for no touch in, presumably they couldn’t work out I’d been to the tennis and amending the return journey to Southfields-Wimbledon would have been appropriate?

Case 2. Friday. East Croydon-no touch out. Saturday. Kings Cross (LU)-Victoria (LU)-Victoria (NR)-East Croydon. This time they autocompleted and amended the outward journey to Croydon-Kings Cross (LU). My actual journey was Croydon-Victoria, from where I continued my journey by National Express. So by autocompleting I’ve been overcharged, since I didn’t make a tube journey on the outward leg. How do they think I got to Kings X LU without touching in/out on any tube barriers and why decide that I touched out at an LU station rather than a National Rail station?

londonbridge said:

Case 2. Friday. East Croydon-no touch out. Saturday. Kings Cross (LU)-Victoria (LU)-Victoria (NR)-East Croydon. This time they autocompleted and amended the outward journey to Croydon-Kings Cross (LU). My actual journey was Croydon-Victoria, from where I continued my journey by National Express. So by autocompleting I’ve been overcharged, since I didn’t make a tube journey on the outward leg. How do they think I got to Kings X LU without touching in/out on any tube barriers and why decide that I touched out at an LU station rather than a National Rail station?

Click to expand...

Probably assumed you went Thameslink to Farringdon, change there (no need to go through barriers) onto LU to Kings Cross. Or maybe the algorithm hasn't been amended to take account of the move of Thameslink from King's Cross (old Met stn) to St Pancras LL.

For Autocomplete, isn't where you might be expected not to have touched in/out one of the considerations?

If I was going to Kings Cross on the thameslink route why would I bother changing at Farringdon instead of going directly to St Pancras?

I think the system is not as smart as you hope it is - I think that it sees the next journey starts from Kings Cross LU, it autocompletes the last journey there and moves on with its life.

londonbridge said:

If I was going to Kings Cross on the thameslink route why would I bother changing at Farringdon instead of going directly to St Pancras?

Click to expand...

I thought about this, and while normally it is not something sensible to do, the KX/StP complex is large enough that - depending on where you wanted to end up, it might be preferable to change at Farringdon and have a shorter work at KX/StP. Worth noting is that the bus is timed to take 9 minutes from 'St Pancras International' to 'Kings Cross Station' (stops S to C IIRC)

Just taken a phone call from TFL thanking me for my email and agreeing to refund the overcharge for case (2) in my original post, where they autocompleted a journey to include the tube when I hadn't actually used it. Wasn't expecting a phone call as I'd ticked 'please respond by email' when I sent the journey querey in so thought it a nice touch.

londonbridge said:

Wasn't expecting a phone call as I'd ticked 'please respond by email' when I sent the journey querey in so thought it a nice touch.

Click to expand...

Or a breach of data protection laws. I always prefer communication in writing so that there is evidence of communication

She gave me a reference number and the £1.50 overcharge has now been refunded so case closed as they say.