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Every Tube ticket office to close

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JaJaWa

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Having to require a discount reapplied to my Oyster recently, I was told by queue busters outside the Kings Cross Visitors Centre that staff inside would be able to do it only to be told by staff inside they actually couldn't so having wasted my time patiently queuing I wasn't impressed.

Thankfully the gateline staff were able to apply the discount for me thankfully!

(King's Cross) St Pancras visitor centre were able to do it for me. I asked about if they knew anything about when you'd be able to load a Railcard on to a contactless payment card and was told that would happen at the relevant bank! :lol:
 
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bicbasher

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I was at London Bridge and Charing Cross at the tail end of Friday's morning rush. I didn't see one CSA by the POM's at either station.

London Bridge has it's ticket office boarded up, while no change at the Strand ticket office at Charing Cross with the signs removed.
 

Aictos

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(King's Cross) St Pancras visitor centre were able to do it for me. I asked about if they knew anything about when you'd be able to load a Railcard on to a contactless payment card and was told that would happen at the relevant bank! :lol:

The difference is whereas they might be able to work out how to load a rail discount such as a Young Persons Railcard etc onto a Oyster they have yet to get the training or investment to load a PTAC onto a Oyster.

I used to prefer to use the booking office by the gateline opposite the quick route to the Victoria line but that's now closed which is a pity as every time I went pass it, it was very very very well used.

As such my view on the visitors centre's is that they should be used to compliment the booking offices not replace them.
 

mrmartin

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Much prefer the new ticket office-less setup. The only things I have used the ticket office for are:

1) Refunding oyster cards when I left mine at home and have to buy a new one for a day. Now can be done in a few seconds instead of a long queue and usually some paperwork/forms.

2) Loading on railcard discount. Used to get so much grief from some staff saying it wasn't possible and/or you had to do it at a national rail station. Now very simple, a few taps from the guy near the machine.

Even the first will become a thing of the past with contactless.
 

bluegoblin7

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The difference is whereas they might be able to work out how to load a rail discount such as a Young Persons Railcard etc onto a Oyster they have yet to get the training or investment to load a PTAC onto a Oyster.

They have the ability to load all discounts onto Oysters, however for some reason some of the staff there refuse to deal with anything other than the selling of Oyster cards.

They're going to have a bit of a shock at the end of the month when our final T/O closes...
 

plcd1

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They have the ability to load all discounts onto Oysters, however for some reason some of the staff there refuse to deal with anything other than the selling of Oyster cards.

They're going to have a bit of a shock at the end of the month when our final T/O closes...

Makes me wonder why the local management isn't ensuring the "refusing staff" are not getting a shock already. Shouldn't they be serving the public properly rather than running a local resistance movement?
 

swt_passenger

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To save a new thread I thought I'd just add that I had a national railcard discount applied quickly today at Blackfriars, however there was one question mark about the process.

The entry screen that staff access asked for the 'photo card' number to be added, and of course not all national railcards have a separate photo card, or even a photo.

Anyway the second staff member called over was aware of this and said to the other that the actual card serial number was OK if there was no separate photo card.

May smooth the waters for anyone else doing this.
 

paul332

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Makes me wonder why the local management isn't ensuring the "refusing staff" are not getting a shock already. Shouldn't they be serving the public properly rather than running a local resistance movement?

Perhaps you are confusing local management, and local staff, who are taking this action, with intelligent human beings. Easily done.
 

Be3G

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Anyway the second staff member called over was aware of this and said to the other that the actual card serial number was OK if there was no separate photo card.

This is, I believe, a stumbling block for adding railcards at Oyster ticket stops too – it's technically possible, but issues like this render your average corner shop employee unlikely to be able to help.
 

Busaholic

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Much prefer the new ticket office-less setup. The only things I have used the ticket office for are:

1) Refunding oyster cards when I left mine at home and have to buy a new one for a day. Now can be done in a few seconds instead of a long queue and usually some paperwork/forms.

2) Loading on railcard discount. Used to get so much grief from some staff saying it wasn't possible and/or you had to do it at a national rail station. Now very simple, a few taps from the guy near the machine.

Even the first will become a thing of the past with contactless.

It may not be too long before contactless becomes a thing of the past - its easy abuse by fraudsters is well-known and growing by the day. Those in the know will not use contactless; the City of London Police's Fraud Ambassador advocates cutting the relevant bit out of the card!
 

island

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To save a new thread I thought I'd just add that I had a national railcard discount applied quickly today at Blackfriars, however there was one question mark about the process.

The entry screen that staff access asked for the 'photo card' number to be added, and of course not all national railcards have a separate photo card, or even a photo.

Anyway the second staff member called over was aware of this and said to the other that the actual card serial number was OK if there was no separate photo card.

May smooth the waters for anyone else doing this.

An FOI request a long while back indicated that the procedure was now for the NLC of the station to be entered instead of the photocard number.
 

bluegoblin7

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An FOI request a long while back indicated that the procedure was now for the NLC of the station to be entered instead of the photocard number.

That's certainly not been communicated to staff; we are expected to insert the photo card number or the railcard number, or certain other codes for some discounts.
 

Daniel

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That's certainly not been communicated to staff; we are expected to insert the photo card number or the railcard number, or certain other codes for some discounts.

The NLC code was for issuing a yearly ticket on oyster, where there was obviously no photo card, the issuing stations NLC code was used instead.
 

Aictos

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They have the ability to load all discounts onto Oysters, however for some reason some of the staff there refuse to deal with anything other than the sellingf of Oyster cards.

They're going to have a bit of a shock at the end of the month when our final T/O closes...

Is that so well I can assure you that while the floor walkers assured me they could, the person who served me said nope, not possible.

So as you can tell waiting patiently then being told they can't carry out the transaction thus wasting my time didn't exactly endear me with them especially as I could have saved time by asking at the gateline for assistance.

Needless to say I was not impressed, I just hope my next use of it I don't have a issue.

All I wanted was my newly reissued PTAC to be reapplied to my Oyster so not the most difficult of transactions I believe as I've done it before at LUL ticket offices and it takes mins if that.

By the sound of it, they are indeed going to have quite a shock when your final TO closes...
 

telstarbox

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It may not be too long before contactless becomes a thing of the past - its easy abuse by fraudsters is well-known and growing by the day. Those in the know will not use contactless; the City of London Police's Fraud Ambassador advocates cutting the relevant bit out of the card!

Can you elaborate on that?
 

Peter Mugridge

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Probably not advisable to give details openly, but think about how a contactless card passes money over, and how easy it is to get close to people in crowded situations...
 

bluegoblin7

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Is that so well I can assure you that while the floor walkers assured me they could, the person who served me said nope, not possible.

So as you can tell waiting patiently then being told they can't carry out the transaction thus wasting my time didn't exactly endear me with them especially as I could have saved time by asking at the gateline for assistance.

Needless to say I was not impressed, I just hope my next use of it I don't have a issue.

All I wanted was my newly reissued PTAC to be reapplied to my Oyster so not the most difficult of transactions I believe as I've done it before at LUL ticket offices and it takes mins if that.

By the sound of it, they are indeed going to have quite a shock when your final TO closes...

I don't disbelieve you at all, never did, no need to assure me! :lol:

Would strongly encourage you to file a complaint with regards to this, because the ones we put in don't seem to have any effect. :cry:
 

island

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My friend has spent five days (ending yesterday) traipsing around London before she found a TfL* person willing and able to set a child visitor discount on an Oyster card for her.

*including subsidiaries
 

bluegoblin7

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My friend has spent five days (ending yesterday) traipsing around London before she found a TfL* person willing and able to set a child visitor discount on an Oyster card for her.

*including subsidiaries

This one I can sort-of accept. Until very recently there's been restrictions on who and where this discount can be set, and not all staff are familiar of the exact data to be input when setting it. It was restricted solely to zone 1 stations and Heathrow, although many smaller z1 stations weren't aware of it.

It's now possible to set it at any LU station, for the record; as with anything else, approach a member of gateline staff and ask for it. If they say they can't, please refer it up - because it annoys us when staff refuse to do CSID functions just as much as it annoys you! :lol:
 

meridian2

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Staff have to adapt to modern times and the sad truth is that very few people actually use offices anymore.
 

cjohnson

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Probably not advisable to give details openly, but think about how a contactless card passes money over, and how easy it is to get close to people in crowded situations...

But surely the person receiving ('stealing') the money has to have on their person a contactless terminal, which is in turn linked via wireless/bluetooth to somewhere... which has in turn been set up with Visa/Mastercard etc. to deposit funds into a bank account.

There were some reports that it is possible with a moderately powerful RFID reader to 'grab' the 16 digit card number and expiry date for some cards, but without the CVV and cardholder address that would be fairly useless...
 

Robertj21a

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But surely the person receiving ('stealing') the money has to have on their person a contactless terminal, which is in turn linked via wireless/bluetooth to somewhere... which has in turn been set up with Visa/Mastercard etc. to deposit funds into a bank account.

There were some reports that it is possible with a moderately powerful RFID reader to 'grab' the 16 digit card number and expiry date for some cards, but without the CVV and cardholder address that would be fairly useless...


........and, afaik, the maximum value transaction is £20.
 

Aictos

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I don't disbelieve you at all, never did, no need to assure me! :lol:

Would strongly encourage you to file a complaint with regards to this, because the ones we put in don't seem to have any effect. :cry:

Well I've filed a complaint so just got to wait and see what TfL say now...
 

JaJaWa

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It may not be too long before contactless becomes a thing of the past - its easy abuse by fraudsters is well-known and growing by the day. Those in the know will not use contactless; the City of London Police's Fraud Ambassador advocates cutting the relevant bit out of the card!

Load of nonsense from a hoax email.
 

Aictos

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I don't disbelieve you at all, never did, no need to assure me! :lol:

Would strongly encourage you to file a complaint with regards to this, because the ones we put in don't seem to have any effect. :cry:

TfL just paid lip service to my complaint, didn't bother to clarify which staff member at the visitors centre was right nor did they thank me for pointing out how helpful the one member of staff was.

Just your bog standard we have high standards and we are sorry we did not meet your expectations etc etc etc

So I'm still in the dark to what the visitors centre CANNOT do which is great :roll:

Any ideas yourself?
 

bluegoblin7

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TfL just paid lip service to my complaint, didn't bother to clarify which staff member at the visitors centre was right nor did they thank me for pointing out how helpful the one member of staff was.

Just your bog standard we have high standards and we are sorry we did not meet your expectations etc etc etc

So I'm still in the dark to what the visitors centre CANNOT do which is great :roll:

Any ideas yourself?

I have one further idea, but I'm away this weekend. I will PM you on Tuesday - please remind me if I forget!
 
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