Friday, February 27, 2009

Ezlink is not error free

If you think ezlink is error free, please don’t take it for granted. I am going to share something that requires your attention.

Since I bought a Sony Pasori card reader, I always top up my ezlink at home. The card reader not only giving me a convenience of topping up ezlink at home, it also allows me to check a limited number of past transactions for any ezlink. In other words, I can counter check whether my transportation fares are correctly deducted.

I did not expect to have any error in the fare deductions not until recently. After doing a top up for my wife’s ezlink, I went to check the card transaction details. Then I noticed there was a double deduction in one of her fares. The weird thing there was two minutes plus gap in the deductions. Even if she had made a double tap, why was there a gap in timing between the taps? Of course it was not possible for her to alight and board the same bus.

Ezlink transction details

Upon checking with a TransitLink ticketing officer, there was indeed an error. I pity those commuters who are wrongly charged but got no way of finding it out. I suggest keeping track of the ezlink balance or to check its transaction details to be certain.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi there,

I am happy you brought this up. I know that there is some problem as some times i feel that i need to top up my card more freaquently.

I tried looking at the history at the GTM but can only look to the last 3 days transcations.

Sometimes even the bus stages are incorrectly charging the rates. i.e. stage 1-3 71 cents but since its 4 it charge u 93 cents.

All these makes a difference. 21 cents for 1 communter. 21 x 1 million passengers..

Mike Dirnt said...

hey thanks,

i didnt know you can check the history from GTM. its alright if you pass by a mrt station. but those people who only frequent buses wont be able to validate the transactions.

yes i believe most of the problems occur when you take buses as the ezlink transponder may detect incorrect stages.

i hope my post will alert everyone because im sure there are many out there who fall prey to these problems!

Anonymous said...

i think you should write in to the newspaper forum and bring this up to the public so that the relevant authorities will do something about it

Mike Dirnt said...

well i am sure someone has raised this issue? i was not aware previously!

Anonymous said...

they used to have the transaction-checking service on the ez-link website but it was removed. too many transactions, and scalability issues, they said.

a few letters were published during the times when fares were raised and also when they implemented fines for underpaying fares. the writers asked the operators to disclose how much passengers were being overcharged and what they were doing with this sum of money.

but you know how these things work. either they ignore you and do not reply, or they would just give a standard corporate and politically-correct response to your queries.

back to square one.

Vincent said...

This is unacceptable, how people can check their daily transaction, and yet this error occured, I think this should be reported in newspaper.

Mike Dirnt said...

Hi vincent,

i guess we have to be responsible for our own accounts :)

Anonymous said...

I had my fair share too. A normal bus ride for 2 stops cost me $2.40. A check shows that I boarded another bus service which I have never heard of at my estate. Apparently everyone on that bus were overcharged!