Battersea Park station users 'overcharged by £49,000 in Oyster card payments'

Oyster cards cost people travelling via Battersea Park station £49, 000 in incomplete journey charges in 2010, according to the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group leader Caroline Pidgeon.

 

Through questioning Boris Johnson, she has obtained figures showing that passengers are being overcharged by more than £1 million a week as a result of Oystercard payments.

The figures list the top ten stations where passengers were ripped of as:

Waterloo National Rail (NR) £2,452,000 London Bridge (NR £2,300,000 Liverpool Street (NR) £1,615,000 Bank London Underground £1,339,000 King’s Cross London Underground £1,073,000 Victoria London Underground £982,000 Stratford (NR) £877 ,000 Wimbledon (NR) £825,000 Oxford Circus London Underground £862,000 and Liverpool Street London Underground £670,000.

Passengers were also overcharged due to incomplete journey charges by more than £300,000 at some smaller stations including Balham.

 

14 million journeys in 2010 involved passengers being charged the maximum single fare of £7.40, as opposed to the correct fare for their journey. In total passengers were ripped off by £61.8 million last year, with overcharging occurring at all stations where Oystercards were accepted.

 

Caroline Pidgeon said: “This level of overcharging is totally unacceptable. There is something very seriously wrong when each and every week of the year Londoners are ripped off by more than £1 million.

“Of course in some cases passengers might forget to touch in and touch out, but such huge levels of overcharging clearly demonstrate that there are some structural problems with how Oyster is operating. It is clear that not enough is being done to ensure the machines and the technology are working properly.

“TfL also need to take immediate steps to make it far easier for people to be able to claim a refund when they have been overcharged.

“Above all else the levels of overcharging occurring need to be regularly published at every station, so that passengers are alerted to this serious problem.”

In a written response, Boris Johnson said: Maximum fares are not overcharges. The terms of pay as you go (PAYG) make it quite clear that users must touch in and out to obtain the best fare. Maximum fares are charged to deter fraud and ensure that users validate their cards properly.

 

“TfL calculates that between 60 and 80 per cent of the revenue raised through maximum fares would have been spent by customers if their Oyster card were validated correctly.”

He also said refunds of the charges are available from the Oyster help-line and London Underground stations, adding that £10m of maximum fares are refunded to customers each year representing up to a quarter of all maximum charges.