Public transport in London has been pretty advanced when it comes to the use of contactless payments, but a problem has been uncovered whereby Oyster Card users could find themselves double charged, all thanks to the simplicity of the payment.
Since the launch of contactless payments in September, travellers who have both an Oyster card and a contactless payment card in the same wallet may have found that their contactless card makes the payment when the Oyster card should have done so.
Transport for London (TfL) have automatically repaid around £300,000 to about 50,000 travellers for these “card clash” cases, but they are not able to identify all the cases where it is happening. TfL estimate that around 1,500 card clashes are happening each day.
So what should you do if you think you’ve ended up paying twice for your journeys?
Well, TfL are said to be closely monitoring card clash and are working to identify and automatically refund customers when they may have accidentally touched more than one card on a reader and paid with a card they did not intend to use. Customers are also able to contact them on 0343 222 1234 or can go online to get a refund. If you’re claiming a TfL refund you’ll need to provide your Oyster or Oyster photo card number.
And to prevent it happening in future, there are a few options. Firstly, you could do away with your Oyster card altogether, and just rely on a contactless card in future. In some cases it may even be cheaper to pay this way.
Alternatively, you could invest in a card protector, which slips over each card you want to avoid using:
Or of course, you could just remove the card you wish to pay with from your wallet each time you wish to pay.