Transport for London sacks Oyster contractor

Am I the only person who noticed that everything was fine until Dutch(?) researchers hacked the system recently, to convince their government that the system was vulnerable?

Seems suspicious to me that all these troubles have happened since then. Maybe a glitch that was put into the system from the hack, just took several weeks to surface.

Oh, and Hello to SW fans in London.

 

I happened to be on holiday during the problems and didn't notice much of this trouble.

I don't think everything was fine. A year or two ago I happened to be in town when a great downpour flooded the station near Harrods. I came out during this and they opened the gates to let everyone through, saying they didn't work anyway. It was then I got a deep insight how the oyster card system works, that is it takes £4 off your balance and then recredits it when you leave your exit station. Now, when I was going home I couldn't enter Knightsbridge station but had to walk further down to another one and as the gates were working properly I swiped my card. It was only when I left the underground I realised I had been penalised for something I didn't do.

By accident I found another 'hack'. One day to my shock I noticed that during the day to get from NW2 to Wimbledon costs £2.5 instead of the usual £2. Then I figured that it's acutally cheaper to go somewhere and not leave the station - it can happen when you just want to hand over something to someone or accompany a friend - and go back to your initial stop or anywhere near, because you'd be paying only £4 instead of £5. I'm not sure that was clear and it is relevant only to particular situations but you get my gist.

So, no. It has never been totally great. But I like it.