Where is my money TFL?

Don’t worry this isn’t another scathing attack on Transport for London, although it would be very easy to write a blog on the daily horror of the tube.

Instead, it is about something more annoying – TFL all but confiscating £106 of my money.

I merely tried to top up my monthly Oyster card using the TFL website. In my naivety I thought that topping up online would be the easiest option.

The payment was not accepted. A technical issue – I had my old address registered to my Oyster account which is not the same as my new address or my bank account – so the transaction was rejected.

Fine. I thought. I’ll just do it on my way home. I paid the £106 for a monthly travel card between zone 1 and 2 and thought no more of it.

Yesterday I noticed that my bank account was over £200 down but neither payment has been processed (ie. it wasn’t showing up on my online banking account).

Weird. I can’t possibly have paid twice. The first transaction was rejected. Wasn’t it?

Two minutes on the phone to a helpful NatWest customer service representative revealed that I had two ‘pending’ charges of £106 on my account. Ah-ha! TFL had taken the payment twice.

I rang Oyster to have one of the payments refunded. Simple. Or so I thought.

The Oyster representative told me that ALL payments, even those that are rejected, are taken by your bank and placed in a ‘holding account’.

She couldn’t tell me why they did this but only that ‘most companies taking online transactions do’. Really? It sounds strange to me.

She said that the money would be automatically refunded to my account ‘within 7 days’.

Right, so what exactly is my money doing for these 7 days? And how can a company take a payment without a successful transaction taking place?

Answers on a postcard, please.

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