A BUS USER is urging fellow First Cymru customers to check their bank statements carefully after he was repeatedly overcharged because their ‘Tap On, Tap Off’ (TOTO) card readers malfunctioned.
Educational course leader and freelance artist Mark Worrall, 48, takes the First Cymru X2 bus around twice a week to visit his uncle, who lives in a care home in Tondu, along with journeys for work and leisure to Bridgend, Cowbridge and Cardiff.
TOTO allows customers to use a bank card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, which they then tap against a scanner upon boarding a bus, and then do the same when they alight.
First Cymru’s website says that passengers using TOTO will pay £1.90 for a journey of 1-2 miles, £2.20 for a journey of 2-3 miles and the amount steadily increases to a total of £3 for a journey of more than five miles.
There is also a day cap of £5.40, which is the maximum any customer using TOTO will pay, regardless of how many miles they travel or journeys they take. However, customers have to make sure they remember to tap off when they complete their journey, otherwise they are charged the full £5.40 daily rate.
Mr Worrall from Porthcawl tries to use the bus whenever he can for environmental reasons, but he says the TOTO technology is not fit for purpose, and that he has repeatedly been overcharged: “More often than not, the journey reads as incomplete when tapping off, and sometimes it gives the wrong boarding place, for example, there have been occasions where it says I have got on in Cowbridge, whereas I actually boarded in Bridgend, which is a good six miles away, and I was charged more as a result.
“These are not occasional errors, in my experience it goes wrong about 70% of the time, and I worked out that since March, I’ve been overcharged by £11.39.
“There’s also a real inconsistency to it. I recently made a journey with my partner, and his journey registered as incomplete, while mine registered as complete, though it gave the wrong boarding stop for both of us,” he said.
Mr Worrall also said that the procedure for claiming a refund from First Cymru was cumbersome and that many people would give up out of frustration: “The method for applying for a refund is clunky. Using the website portal, which isn’t easy to find, you have to apply for a refund for one part of the journey and not the other, but it’s not possible to apply for a refund for both parts.
“As a result, I then have to phone customer service, invariably they don’t understand the problem or are unable to help. They’re in Leeds and have little knowledge of local geography.
“They then send an email to a backend office, and they, too, often don’t understand the problem. It’s a lot of effort for a 49p refund, but when it happens all the time, the costs soon add up,” he said.
After months of emails and phone calls, Mr Worrall has now given up using the TOTO method of payment. He said: “I’ve now reached the stage where I just buy an old-fashioned £6 paper ticket, which is valid for a single day. It works out a bit more expensive but at least I know where I stand.
“I encourage all First Cymru customers who use TOTO to check their bank statements to make sure they’re not being overcharged. It might just be a few pence here and there, but if you’re making regular journeys, it could soon amount to a significant sum of money.
“There’s lots of talk of a cashless society and certain places no longer take cash at all. This is just one of many examples of the risks of a cashless society. People get charged the wrong amount and it’s difficult to rectify the situation, especially when it’s so hard to talk to a real human being face-to-face nowadays.
“First Cymru are very keen to put adverts up encouraging people to use TOTO, but they’re not so keen to help customers apply for refunds when things go wrong, as they frequently do.”
First Cymru’s response.
A spokesperson for First Cymru said: “Every week on our Cymru network about 26,000 trips are made using TOTO with the majority of those customers not experiencing any issues.
“However, we recognise that on rare occasions mistakes are made; this could be through unexpected, temporary problems with our card readers or customer human error.
“This is why we offer an easy-to-use online service where you can check your journeys and apply for a refund if you think you’ve been overcharged.
“If you’re unable to use our online system, finding help is easy on our website by clicking the ‘help and support’ and ‘contact us’ options or searching ‘first bus customer services’ in a search engine and calling our contact centre on 0345 646 0707.”
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