Clapham chaos: London commuters over-charged hundreds due to faulty card readers
Commuters have been overcharged by up to three times their regular fare at Clapham Junction, due to a fault with the card reader at the station.
Rail passengers took to Twitter to vent their anger after fares of £8 appeared on bank statements in excess of £20 this week.
It is understood the issues began last Thursday when torrential rain caused flooding, and the issue has now been resolved.
It has drawn the ire of many commuters, who took to social media complaining there was no signage at the rail hub warning people of the fault.
Commuters are only allowed to challenge errors and request refunds three times per month.
One user on X, formerly known as Twitter, claimed up to 40,000 customers had been affected.
TfL declined to say the exact figure as yet.
Another user said it was “outrageous — and not a single notification/poster at the station alerting people to the fact” that the readers were faulty.
On the site, Lloyd Tingley asked the network: “Are you planning on doing anything about the broken ticket barriers at Clapham Junction? Leading to incomplete journeys every day for a week now, costing me £20 when it should be £7. Have used my allocated 3 incomplete journey refunds. No signs put up, just robbing people.”
One reader, who wished to remain anonymous, told this paper of her shock after an £8.10 fair this week led to £24 being taken on a number of days, and £30 for a fair over the weekend.
“I am so distraught. In the last three days, TFL have charged me close to £100 for a six-minute train to Victoria. What is worse is that I will have to deal with TfL’s slow customer service to get my money back, I don’t know how long I will have to wait to be refunded”, the commuter said.
“I wanted to use that money for Christmas presents but I have now been plunged back into my overdraft.”
Transport for London insisted that not all customers who used Clapham Junction had been impacted by the fault, and it was putting in place measures to mitigate the problem
TFL also said it was now rolling out automatic refunds, which could total thousands of pounds, but leaving passengers temporarily out of pocket by hundreds this week.
Volkan Altinok, head of contact centre operations at TfL said: “Due to the communications room at Clapham Junction station being flooded last week, there have in recent days been issues where customers using pay as you go with contactless or Oyster may have been overcharged for their journeys if they entered or exited at the station.”
“We apologise for the inconvenience this is causing and where possible, have worked to automatically complete and issue automatic refunds to affected customers.”
“We will continue to do so until this is fully resolved. All customers who have been overcharged as a result of this will have these refunded and we are working with Network Rail and relevant train operating companies to ensure customers are aware of this issue,” Altinok continued.
TfL said the process of automatic refunding was underway.