Grrrr... or How I learned to Hate OYstercards and Start Loving Paper Tickets Again
I have the “Auto Top-Up” facility on my Oystercard. The pre-pay on the card gets updated with £20.00 everytime the balance of pre-pay falls below £5.00. The £20.00 top-up is then debited from my account. Good? Yeah, until it doesn’t work and the £20.00 doesn’t get collected from my account and the Oystercard debt collection machine kicks in...Email 1. Sent/Received Wednesday 23rd May 2007 11:33
/23/May/2007
Dear Mr Campbell
I am contacting you regarding the Auto top-up instruction currently on your Oyster account.
On the 21th May your Oyster card was successfully credited for the value of £20.00. Unfortunately we were unable to obtain payment from your Credit Debit card for this amount.
This payment must be resettled by 12pm on Monday 25th May or your Oyster card will be cancelled.
To settle the payment, please follow the listed instructions:
Blah, blah, blah
Yours sincerely
Teresa Najdek
Customer Service Advisor
Oyster card Helpline
I didn’t check my email between Tuesday 22nd MAy and Monday 28th May 2007 so that was the first I knew about it. I logged on and paid the arrears and updated my card details to reflect my new issue switch card although technically I shouldn’t have needed to do this. Got confirmation emails for both processes. Job’s a good 'un. Or so I thought...
Email 2: Sent/Received Tuesday 29th May 2007 09:10
/28/May/2007
Dear Mr Campbell
I have investigated the information in your Online account, it would appear that the instructions for payment are being taken through to ‘pay using new card’ at the moment. This means that when your Auto-top instruction comes in to effect, there are no payment card details for Transport for London to resettle the amount outstanding.
I can confirm that in view of the circumstances, we are happy to extend the deadline for resettlement until 12 noon, Tuesday 29th May. I hope this will be acceptable.
The only way to settle the Auto top-up amount is by logging on to your Online Oyster account and selecting option ‘Manage Auto top-up’. This will lead you to a page that displays details of the Outstanding Auto top-up amount, i.e. date of failure and where. Click on ‘Resettle’ and this will lead you to a payment screen. This is where you resettle the amount by re-submitting your Credit Debit card details. Please ensure that you have nominated the correct payment card details.
Blah, blah, blah
Yours sincerely
Paul Taylor
Customer Service Advisor
Oyster card Helpline
Email 3: Sent/Received Tuesday 29th May 2007 17:01
/26/May/2007
Dear Mr Campbell
I am contacting you regarding the Auto top-up instruction currently on your Oyster account.
After an unsuccessful attempt to contact you by telephone, this is the second email we have sent you in relation to this issue.
On the 21st May your Oyster card was successfully credited for the value of £20.00. Unfortunately we were unable to obtain payment from your Credit / Debit card for this amount.
This payment must be resettled by 12 pm 27th May or your Oyster card will be cancelled.
Blah, blah, blah
Yours sincerely
Teresa Najdek
Customer Service Advisor
Oyster card Helpline
Email 4: My reply to Teresa Nejdek
Dear Teresa Najdek
I was unable to check my emails from Tuesday 22nd May until Monday 28th May 2007 by which time I had received the first email regarding this issue from yourself which was sent to me on Wednesday 23rd May 2007. This stated that I had until 12pm on Monday 25th May 2007 to settle the balance. This date doesn’t make any sense- the 25th May was not a Monday!
I followed the instructions in the email and settled the outstanding £20.00 on Monday 28th May 2007. I received an autoresponse confirmation email at 19:14 stating that “You have now paid the balance on your outstanding Auto top-up account.“ At the same time I updated my debit c
Last modified: Thursday, April 9th, 2026 at 9:24am
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