When I checked my credit card statement today, I found that last month I was charged for 12 journeys on London Transport even though I have a Freedom Pass. A quick check on the Transport For London website and I realised that I had fallen victim to the dreaded card clash – London Transport’s machines have been reading my credit card (which enables contactless payments) instead of my Freedom Pass, both of which are in the same wallet.<\/p>\n
It’s amazing how long it can take to sort out such a simple issue.<\/p>\n
First, I found that the number I was calling – obtained from the TFL website – was incorrect. Then, when I found the correct number on another page of the website, I was told that there was a problem with the contact centre and I should call later. Then I had to speak to several different contact centre staff and input credit card details before it was accepted that I had been the victim of card clash.<\/p>\n
Next I had to make and receive further calls while a member of the centre consulted his supervisor to see if I could be repaid. Finally I was told that, because of the amount involved (\u00a3100 or so), I need to make an application by e-mail with copies of my credit card statement and my Freedom Pass.<\/p>\n
I must have spent about half an hour in total on the phone waiting to get through and then speaking to around seven or eight members of staff.<\/p>\n
When it goes smoothly, contactless payments are so convenient. When it goes wrong, it is so complicated and time-consuming to put right. It is not always easy being a consumer in this high tech era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I checked my credit card statement today, I found that last month I was charged for 12 journeys on London Transport even though I have a Freedom Pass. A quick check on the Transport For London website and I realised that I had fallen victim to the dreaded card clash – London Transport’s machines […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consumer-matters","category-my-life-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17374"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17376,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17374\/revisions\/17376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}