Disabled Persons railcard on Oyster

[3rd rail land]

I have a disabled persons railcard loaded on my Oyster.

I tried to make a tube journey recently where I found I was out of credit and upon looking at my journey history, and topping up, I found I had been charged the full adult fare whenever I travelled during peak hours.

My understanding is that there is no time restriction with this railcard. This leads me to believe that ether the employee who added the discount added the wrong type of railcard or somehow the card is not working correctly.

I am being correctly charged the discounted fare and cap at off peak times.

Either way I believe I am eligible for a refund of the extra money I have paid that I shouldn't have. Is this correct? It's not a huge sum, its more about the principle of the matter as I don't make many tube journeys during peak times.

 

[miklcct]

I have a disabled persons railcard loaded on my Oyster.

I tried to make a tube journey recently where I found I was out of credit and upon looking at my journey history, and topping up, I found I had been charged the full adult fare whenever I travelled during peak hours.

My understanding is that there is no time restriction with this railcard. This leads me to believe that ether the employee who added the discount added the wrong type of railcard or somehow the card is not working correctly.

I am being correctly charged the discounted fare and cap at off peak times.

Either way I believe I am eligible for a refund of the extra money I have paid that I shouldn't have. Is this correct? It's not a huge sum, its more about the principle of the matter as I don't make many tube journeys during peak times.

Find a staff at a tube station to fix your discount. The wrong discount has been loaded.

 

[LittleRedTrain]

I had exactly the same problem with mine. It looks like the tube station staff member set the wrong discount flag on my card (the normal NR Railcard one rather than the Disabled Railcard one).
You should be able to check which discount is added by touching the card onto a ticket machine and looking in the top-left corner. (Mine said just 'NR Railcard').

I only found out there was a problem when I tried to check my journey history online and discovered my Oyster card had disappeared from my account.

After much time spent on the phone with TfL, it turned out that the back-office had cancelled the card because the discount type didn't match some other data they had on file (presumably the railcard number), and hadn't bothered to tell me!

I then checked the journey history on a machine (which did still work) and saw that I had been charged the full peak fare rather than Disabled Railcard discounted!

Because the card was cancelled, I had to order a new one online and TfL customer services refunded the balance off the old card, the deposit and the incorrect journey fares to my bank account.
Now I have to go through the process of getting the discount re-added to my new card (it has to be done at a station), and this time I will double-check they've put the correct one on!

I would suggest phoning the TfL Oyster helpline who should be able to sort out a refund of the incorrect fares for you, though you may need to get the discount flag fixed at a tube station.

If this is happening to multiple people, it suggests better training is required for station staff on the difference between Disabled and other NR railcards!

 

[elaine66]

I have a disabled persons railcard loaded on my Oyster.

I tried to make a tube journey recently where I found I was out of credit and upon looking at my journey history, and topping up, I found I had been charged the full adult fare whenever I travelled during peak hours.

My understanding is that there is no time restriction with this railcard. This leads me to believe that ether the employee who added the discount added the wrong type of railcard or somehow the card is not working correctly.

I am being correctly charged the discounted fare and cap at off peak times.

Either way I believe I am eligible for a refund of the extra money I have paid that I shouldn't have. Is this correct? It's not a huge sum, its more about the principle of the matter as I don't make many tube journeys during peak times.

The same thing happened to me. I had to go back to a tube station to get the disabled rail card added to my Oyster correctly. The very helpful advice from people on here was to go to one of the central London stations where staff are more likely to have encountered this before. The staff at Kings Cross sorted it out for me with no trouble at all. I was then able to get the TFL Oyster helpline to sort out a refund for the overpayments, although I did have to explain a couple of times before they understood what the issue was.

 

[LittleRedTrain]

Just for the record, I got my railcard loaded onto my replacement Oyster at the 'Visitor Centre' in Liverpool St.

I subsequently checked it on a ticket machine and it says 'Disabled Railcard' in the top left rather than just 'NR Railcard.'

 

[3rd rail land]

Seems like lot of staff need a refresher on adding railcards to Oyster. I guess a lot of them will not have encountered a request to add a disabled persons railcard.

I'll get the mistake corrected when I am next at a central London station. I originally requested the railcard be added at Oxford Circus. The staff member I asked wasn't able to do it and wanted me to go elsewhere to have it added but instead I waited about 15 minutes for someone to come and assist who was able to do it.