I get the bus once a month and pay by card, and they haven't charged me for the last two months. Should I just ignore it?

Posted by haddock420@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 21 comments

I get the bus once a month for a clinic appointment, and pay £5.20 by card for a daysaver. It usually shows up the day after on my bank statement, but I've noticed for the last two months it hasn't shown up and I haven't been charged. Should I just ignore this and keep getting the free rides? The only thing I'm worried about is if one day all the charges come through at once and I'm charged £50 for ten months of bus trips.

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21 Comments

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ResplendentBear@reddit

I'd just carry on. It's not much money, and to break the law you usually have to show intent. (Which you have now by making this post, but let's ignore that).

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Individual-Fox7752@reddit

Well obviously they didn’t intend to if they scanned their card but just haven’t been charged…

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scarby2@reddit

Assuming you make every effort to pay when you get on and you acting in good faith doing so I don't think it's your fault if they don't collect. It's like if I wrote you a cheque and you never cashed it, I don't think you need to let them know.

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LaurenNotABot@reddit

This happened to my husband but with using a car charger at our local Tesco. He didn’t realise for nearly a year that they weren’t taking the money. No he didn’t say anything and I wouldn’t have either. Couldn’t have been the only one as they swapped the chargers out eventually.

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iiKyleee@reddit

My partners dad had this happen with his EV. We live in the east mids, he did regular trips to Skegness so ~90 miles. Would park in Tesco there as they have 3 hours free parking, charge his car, spend the day and then come back. It never charged him for probably a similar time - a year. One day he charged his car and it actually took it out of his bank.

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Unhappy_Clue701@reddit

Tesco chargers did used to be free, so depending when this was it may have been intentional on their part. That’s been stopped a while now though.

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iiKyleee@reddit

Not sure, he had to pay for it before. Then he noticed one day they hadn’t taken the money from his bank, then one day it just begun again

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Open-Butterfly-5288@reddit

This is actually part of the system. They are creating what is essentially a petrol station they don't pay to man. If they cared about it, there would be a helpful assistant going around plugging people in and making sure that everyone was charging... To make sure they pay.

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Fit-Bedroom-7645@reddit

Why would they pay for an assistant when they can use anpr cameras?

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Open-Butterfly-5288@reddit

Well this.

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NerdyisHere@reddit

I wouldn't say a word.

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beernon@reddit

I had this with the Manchester trams a while back, nothing ever happened. They do charge me properly now though

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MattyFTM@reddit

I would make sure you carry cash with you in case your card gets blocked. Some bus companies have been known to block cards if the payments aren't going through, so I'd have an alternative payment method ready, especially for such an important journey. But otherwise, enjoy your free bus travel.

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Grass_Hurts@reddit

I see this a lot. If you tapped your card, as far as you’re concerned you’ve paid. Bus card machines seem to have a mind of their own.

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Jacktheforkie@reddit

My card doesn’t work on em

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jejdhdijen@reddit

Put it into NS&i and if they ever come for it, withdraw

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ZoeEatsToes@reddit

They only have 6 months from transaction to come for it right?

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390TrainsOfficial@reddit

6 years.

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GordonLivingstone@reddit

Have you used the card for anything else or with its PIN number? I've made a couple of charity donations and car park payments that seemed to go through but never got charged. I think what happened is that the machine appeared to accept the card but only connected to the bank later - when it got rejected because I had exceeded the number of PIN free transactions. Probably more likely to happen with a poor internet connection - like on a bus? The machine is likely set up not to hold up the bus waiting for verification

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semaj420@reddit

do it, dude. you "didn't know"and thought you "were paying for the service as normal", after all.

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