Dispute with KeyGo failing to take payments from my mother's card

Envy123 · 19 Jan 2022

This has been an ongoing situation for quite some time.

My mother travels five days a week from Huntingdon to Farringdon. She has signed up for KeyGo and taps in and out as normal with her Key Smartcard. Most times, the payment is successfully taken.

However, on three separate occasions, the payment fails even though there are sufficient funds on the card, and her KeyGo is blocked. This results in a back-and-fro between my mother and GTR, to get the issue resolved and that she can use KeyGo again.

She has raised the issue once again with GTR customer services.

I am asking - could she be penalised further by having this happen numerous times through no fault of her own? And is there anything that can be done on our side to prevent this from happening? Or does my mother need to buy a season ticket and not bother with KeyGo at all?

Any advice would be appreciated.

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WesternLancer · 19 Jan 2022

Envy123 said:
This has been an ongoing situation for quite some time.

My mother travels five days a week from Huntingdon to Farringdon. She has signed up for KeyGo and taps in and out as normal with her Key Smartcard. Most times, the payment is successfully taken.

However, on three separate occasions, the payment fails even though there are sufficient funds on the card, and her KeyGo is blocked. This results in a back-and-fro between my mother and GTR, to get the issue resolved and that she can use KeyGo again.

She has raised the issue once again with GTR customer services.

I am asking - could she be penalised further by having this happen numerous times through no fault of her own? And is there anything that can be done on our side to prevent this from happening? Or does my mother need to buy a season ticket and not bother with KeyGo at all?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Do you get any financial advantage from using keyGo? Or is it just the convenience of having the smart card. If no financial advantage I'd just not bother with it and go back to conventional tickets.

paul1609 · 19 Jan 2022

My keygo just debits my bank debit card after the journey its always worked for me. If it didn't debit the journey presumably I'd just get it for free.

Alex365Dash · 19 Jan 2022

WesternLancer said:
Do you get any financial advantage from using keyGo? Or is it just the convenience of having the smart card. If no financial advantage I'd just not bother with it and go back to conventional tickets.

It’s just the convenience - it costs the same as a day’s travel on the relevant journeys, however in this case where OP’s mother is travelling five days a week, it’s probably cheaper to buy a season ticket.

Envy123 · 19 Jan 2022

WesternLancer said:
Do you get any financial advantage from using keyGo? Or is it just the convenience of having the smart card. If no financial advantage I'd just not bother with it and go back to conventional tickets.

It definitely helps when I make an odd journey in the KeyGo area. Charges me a cheaper ticket than what I would have bought on paper. But other than that, it's the same price as the equivalent paper ticket.

paul1609 said:
My keygo just debits my bank debit card after the journey its always worked for me. If it didn't debit the journey presumably I'd just get it for free.

I have never had problems with KeyGo on my end. My mother, though, had three issues already.

Alex365Dash said:
It’s just the convenience - it costs the same as a day’s travel on the relevant journeys, however in this case where OP’s mother is travelling five days a week, it’s probably cheaper to buy a season ticket.

One of those five days is a Saturday, so it is slightly cheaper to use KeyGo. But discussing this with her, better to pay slightly more and have less hassle.

plugwash · 21 Jan 2022

What payment methods does keygo accept? could she for instance try using her credit card instead of her debit card or vice-versa?

Envy123 · 22 Jan 2022

plugwash said:
What payment methods does keygo accept? could she for instance try using her credit card instead of her debit card or vice-versa?

Afaik, only debit cards as it needs to charge a token 1p to verify it.

Bletchleyite · 22 Jan 2022

Envy123 said:
Afaik, only debit cards as it needs to charge a token 1p to verify it.

Why would you not be able to do that on a credit card?

(You can, and their FAQ says credit cards are accepted).

Envy123 · 22 Jan 2022

Bletchleyite said:
Why would you not be able to do that on a credit card?

(You can, and their FAQ says credit cards are accepted).

I'll try that, if the new debit card fails to take payments.

grumblingalong · 22 Jan 2022

Envy123 said:
Afaik, only debit cards as it needs to charge a token 1p to verify it.

Got mine linked to an AMEX so they'll take just about everything

717001 · 23 Jan 2022

Envy123 said:
However, on three separate occasions, the payment fails even though there are sufficient funds on the card,

Just wondering whether it might be a card issue - I have one which requires periodic use of chip and pin. Could it be rejecting sometimes, when the payment is processed, through something similar?

paul1609 · 23 Jan 2022

I had a credit union pocket money account where the debit card was provided by some weird card provider in Birmingham. Worked fine everywhere including with TfL but on the local stagecoach bus services in Kent you had a 50/50 chance of it being rejected. In the end I closed the account because of it.

island · 24 Jan 2022

717001 said:
Just wondering whether it might be a card issue - I have one which requires periodic use of chip and pin. Could it be rejecting sometimes, when the payment is processed, through something similar?

That shouldn't arise for remote payments, only contactless.

Bletchleyite · 24 Jan 2022

paul1609 said:
I had a credit union pocket money account where the debit card was provided by some weird card provider in Birmingham. Worked fine everywhere including with TfL but on the local stagecoach bus services in Kent you had a 50/50 chance of it being rejected. In the end I closed the account because of it.

Sometimes you get oddities with cards. I found that Co-operative Bank and Smile cards had a tendency to crash the "SIX Card Services" machines that are/were common in Switzerland - but only those. It was quite annoying as the effect was that the machine held onto the card for a few minutes before eventually rebooting itself and spitting it back out (the slot on them is more like a cash machine so you can't pull it out). I missed a train the first couple of times it happened (originally assumed it to be a one off so tried once more).

We never managed to get to the bottom of why, but it was only that bank's cards.

Envy123 · 27 Jan 2022

717001 said:
Just wondering whether it might be a card issue - I have one which requires periodic use of chip and pin. Could it be rejecting sometimes, when the payment is processed, through something similar?

She tried with two cards - no dice. They refuse to take the money.

pedr · 27 Jan 2022

Are the two cards from the same bank? Each bank has had to implement new payment verification processes and it's possible that the way this bank has set things up isn't working with GTR's system properly.

richw · 27 Jan 2022

It will be an issue with the bank, rather than the supplier. Banks like to block transactions that meet certain triggers. Barclays once told me I’d made loads of very small transactions as the reason for blocking. Apparently a common trait of fraud is lots of small transactions before a big one!

Envy123 · 27 Jan 2022

pedr said:
Are the two cards from the same bank? Each bank has had to implement new payment verification processes and it's possible that the way this bank has set things up isn't working with GTR's system properly.

One from Nationwide and another from Lloyd's.

My Nationwide card works with KeyGo just fine.

D6975 · 29 Jan 2022

richw said:
It will be an issue with the bank, rather than the supplier. Banks like to block transactions that meet certain triggers. Barclays once told me I’d made loads of very small transactions as the reason for blocking. Apparently a common trait of fraud is lots of small transactions before a big one!

My bank makes a call to me before taking any kind of action, to check if the transactions are genuine. Only happened to me once and he just listed the transactions, asking me if each one was genuine.

richw · 29 Jan 2022

D6975 said:
My bank makes a call to me before taking any kind of action, to check if the transactions are genuine. Only happened to me once and he just listed the transactions, asking me if each one was genuine.

That’s how I found out about what I posted. Except as I didn’t answer my phone they froze my card until I spoke to them

Dispute with KeyGo failing to take payments from my mother's card

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