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Londoners pay £360,000 for wrong use of Oyster Cards
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About 18,000 people travelling on the Tube using Oyster cards are paying the maximum fare every day as they are failing to use their cards correctly.
This means every week commuters pay a total of £360,000 for not using their cards properly, according to new figures obtained by BBC London.
Since November, failing to touch in and touch out with the card meant commuters have to pay the full single fare of £4. |
Transport for London denied it was trying to make extra revenue.
Abusing the system
"If people use the system as we tell them to - which is to touch in and touch out - then they should be just be paying the correct fare," said Shashi Verma, director of Oyster cards for Transport for London.
"This is not about charging people more money than they should be charged."
A tiny proportion of journeys - only 0.6% - are at fault out of three million journeys on the system every day, he said.
And the figure is down from sixty thousand people a day misusing the system when the policy was first introduced.
He hopes that those still failing to use their cards will eventually learn the errors of their ways.
"I think it's just a question of people getting used to it," said Mr Verma.
"We do remind people through posters on the underground system, audio announcements and we even send emails to people who have incurred a maximum fare."
"I think it's just a matter of time before we see the numbers go down even further.
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