Charged £0.00 for Southern keyGo journey Balham to West Croydon!

[flythetube]

Hi
First time using Southern keyGo for a journey as per the title above.
Touched in at Balham at 20:22 and boarded the 20:46 to Epsom Downs, alighting at West Croydon @ 21:04 where the gates opened upon tapping out of the keyGo card.

Checked my account Journey History which strangely shows a Balham to Balham Touch in and Touch out both timed at 20:22 with a £0.00 charge.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how this may have occured?

Are there known issues with keyGo cards opening gates but not charging for the journey made?

My friend made the same journey with me using his Tfl Oystercard with PAYG and we both used the exact same gates and he was charged £2.70 correctly.

Checking mid-journey his Oyster also showed missing touch out as expected and provisionally deducting maximum fare until journey resolved at touch out.

Could it be an issue with gates being managed by different TOC’s or issues with exit data not being received from West Croydon to resolve the journey?

Could data catch up later and then be correctly charged?

Or could there be a revenue hole at West Croydon with keyGo cards not being charged on exit?

I have emailed Southern and await their response.

 

[yorkie]

Could it be an issue with gates being managed by different TOCs ...

Surely it's all GTR? What other TOC would be involved?

 

[flythetube]

Surely it's all GTR? What other TOC would be involved?

AFIK Balham is managed by Southern and West Croydon is managed by Tfl (London Overground)?

 

[yorkie]

Yes you are right London Overground do manage West Croydon, but surely that can't be the reason.

Is there still time yet for the correct fare to be charged?

It will be interesting to see what GTR say.

 

[flythetube]

Here‘s a screenshot.

 

[Mojo]

From the fact it says AutoFill it looks like the tap out at West Croydon didn’t occur.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Interesting that entry and exit at the same station results in zero charge. The situation with an Oyster card is very different:

Same station exits

If you touch contactless (card or device) or an Oyster card on a yellow card reader when you enter a station, and then touch out to exit it within a short period of time, you'll be charged a same station exit:

• Between 0 - 2 minutes: a maximum fare. If you re-enter the same or a different station within 45 minutes, you'll be refunded. This doesn't apply if you take a bus or tram before re-entering a station
• Between 2 - 30 minutes: minimum pay as you go fare from that station
• More than 30 minutes: we'll assume two separate journeys have been made and both will be incomplete. You'll be charged two maximum fares

We apply these charges to discourage fare evasion.

You may be able to get a refund if you touched in and out at the same station.

 

[Wallsendmag]

is there not a delay from third party infrastructure?

 

[RJ]

Interesting that entry and exit at the same station results in zero charge. The situation with an Oyster card is very different:

History has shown that people with a certain mindset will abuse this once they clock onto it. If this is what is happening, any TOCs affected might want to get it fixed.

 

[bubieyehyeh]

I thought it it didn't register the exit tap on the key, GTR emailed you to resolve it via the website. Seems odd to autofill with a same-station exit.

The rambus smart ticket app on android, allows you to check if you keygo card tap history.
If you use it mid-journey it shows a transistionary ticket for tap-in.

 

[flythetube]

I thought it it didn't register the exit tap on the key, GTR emailed you to resolve it via the website. Seems odd to autofill with a same-station exit.

The rambus smart ticket app on android, allows you to check if you keygo card tap history.
If you use it mid-journey it shows a transistionary ticket for tap-in.

I have had no communication from Southern regarding resolving an incomplete journey that’s why I reached out to them as I owe them £2.70 but as yet they haven’t got back to me.

 

[bubieyehyeh]

I found what I remembered in the keygo FAQ https://www.southernrailway.com/help-and-support/contact-us/faqs/keygo
Sounds like you should be able to correct it yourself on the website.

If you have not touched in or out, we will email you to inform you of the missing tap. You can then log into your account to amend the incomplete journeys. You will have up to the Wednesday following the date of travel to add the missing tap, otherwise a £25 Incomplete Journey Charge will be applied to your account. You can complete 3 journeys online in a 28 day period. After this you should contact Customer Services.
Where possible, we try to auto-fill your journeys based upon your regular journey patterns. If our system has auto-filled the wrong station, you can amend this through your online account.

 

[flythetube]

Yes, that should be the case, but that assumes that if ‘I’ fail to touch in or out. In my situation I had touched both in and out at respective locations, but my touch out at West Croydon, whilst opening the gate and letting me out, failed to register this for Southern to compute the fare and autofilled the destination as Balham.

Anyhow, all resolved to satisfaction after contacting Southern, where they responded as follows:-

Dear xxxxxx

Thank you for contacting us regarding your KeyGo journey on 15th March.

I have manually added the missing tap for West Croydon. Our system will update your account overnight so you should see this from tomorrow.

I've also raised the issue with our technical team to investigate. Once they come back to us with any answers I will contact you to advise.

We appreciate you bringing this to our attention.


Kind regards,

xxxxx xxxxxxxx
Retail Team
Southern Customer Relations

Yes, that should be the case, but that assumes that if ‘I’ fail to touch in or out. In my situation I had touched both in and out at respective locations, but my touch out at West Croydon, whilst opening the gate and letting me out, failed to register this for Southern to compute the fare and autofilled the destination as Balham.

Anyhow, all resolved to satisfaction after contacting Southern, where they responded as follows:-

Dear xxxxxx

Thank you for contacting us regarding your KeyGo journey on 15th March.

I have manually added the missing tap for West Croydon. Our system will update your account overnight so you should see this from tomorrow.

I've also raised the issue with our technical team to investigate. Once they come back to us with any answers I will contact you to advise.

We appreciate you bringing this to our attention.


Kind regards,

xxxxx xxxxxxxx
Retail Team
Southern Customer Relations

Oh dear,

Same situation again!
Same Journey, used exact same gates to enter and exit at Balham and West Croydon, then wake up to a stern red message that ‘You have unresolved journeys, you can only amend touch in or outs 3 times within a 28 day period and you must resolve them by the Wednesday following date of travel.

You are given 3 reasons for failure to touch in or out to select as to why YOU FAILED TO TOUCH IN OR OUT.

1) Card Reader Not Working

Well no, card reader worked upon touch out as gates opened at West Croydon upon touching out, but then again yes as despite this, journey not being registered for the purposes of fares reconciliation and charging.

2) Failed to touch in or out

No, I touched in and out as prescribed.

3) Service disruption.

No, services on time and gate lines in normal operation.

I have again emailed Southern to again notify them of this continuing issue.

Awaiting their further response.

 

[jfisher21]

Probably something to do with west croydon being a tfl station - however it should work according to the keygo map.

 

[flythetube]

Probably something to do with west croydon being a tfl station - however it should work according to the keygo map.

Had this further update from Southern a couple of weeks ago, I shall be making the same journey again shortly, so will see if this has been resolved.

Dear *****

Thank you for getting back to us regarding your Key Smartcard and West Croydon gates.

Our technical team have picked this up and are investigating. They are trying to find out what is happening to the tap data and why it's not going onto our system.

The options given for amending a KeyGo journey are really to identify whether it was a fault on our side (such as equipment failure) or a fault on your side (forgetting to tap). The first option would be the best to chose if you tap and it doesn't record.

If you have more incomplete journeys than you are able to amend, please send us the journey details and we will be happy to amend them for you. If one gets missed and you do see a £25 charge, we'd be happy to refund that as we know there's an issue being investigated.

At the moment we don't know where the fault lies. There may be an incorrect setting on the gates which means taps aren't being recorded on the Key. The tap data may not being sent through correctly. There may be an issue on our system with the way West Croydon taps are being processed.

When we have any more information we will contact you to provide an update.


Kind regards,

***** ********
Retail Team
Southern Customer Relations

Here is the latest from Southern regarding gates and taps at West Croydon.


Dear xxxxx

I am contacting you with an update on the Key Smartcard issue at West Croydon.

Our technical team have been trying to get some feedback from West Croydon station staff, but they're not being very forthcoming. Therefore we're going to try to access the tap data instead. Tap data at West Croydon is only retained for 48 hours and we have to go through a third party to retrieve it, which can take a couple of days to arrange. I'm sure you can see the problem there.

I can see you travelled last night, so we'll try to get that tap data if we can. If you're able to provide a future date/approx. time when you'll be tapping at West Croydon that would be helpful.

We look forward to hearing back from you.