Kiosks for SEPTA Key cards started cropping up in subway stations a little over two years ago, as a small testing phase limited to a handful of SEPTA employees began. Soon after, new SEPTA Key validators started replacing the old turnstiles, fueling rumors that the new fare payment would soon go live and regularly bottlenecking passengers trying to pay with tokens, fare cards or exact change at the remaining few remaining old-style turnstiles or cashiers.

But as hardware upgrades spread to all of SEPTA’s buses, trolleys, and subway stations, the software lagged far behind. Two and a half years behind schedule, SEPTA began its “Early Adopter” program in June, allowing 10,000 passengers to beta-test the new fare system.

For the first few months, Early Adopters were limited to purchasing daily, weekly, or monthly passes. To join, riders had to use kiosks at a limited number of stations or travel to SEPTA’s Headquarters at 1234 Market Street to purchase and add value to a new card. Over the summer, SEPTA allowed a few more Early Adopters to pick up fare cards. As of today, SEPTA has issued 22,374 Key cards.

The piecemeal expansion of the Early Adopter program, ubiquity of the (often inactive) hardware, and the misleading “Begins 6/13/16” advertisements combined led some riders to try picking up their own SEPTA Key card only to be told that they weren’t yet available, or were only available at 1234 Market Street, or unable to add value online.

Last month, SEPTA expanded the Early Adopter beta test to include the Key Card’s “Travel Wallet” function, a debit account on the card that effectively replaces tokens and transfer tickets. At the time, SEPTA intended to make it possible to activate and load the Travel Wallet function only at 1234 Market Street.

SEPTA expanded the number of locations where Key holders can add money to their Travel Wallet this week, but it did not expand the number of cards available. Now riders can also add money at 15th and Market, 69th Street Transportation Center, Olney Transportation Center, and the Frankford Transportation Center. But only those who signed up already can experiment with the Travel Wallet.

Despite the advertisements, SEPTA Key is still in the “very early stages” of the program, said Kevin O’Brien, the senior project manager for the new fare system. “We are incrementally rolling this out in order to avoid major problems, and trying them as small problems, as part of the beta test.”

Despite intending to initially limit Travel Wallet reloads to in-person transactions, some existing Key holders managed to load their cards online. That’s what happened to Dena Driscoll, an East Passyunk resident in her 30s who picked up her SEPTA Key during the initial rollout in June and had been using monthly passes on it since without problem. “Then the wallet option came out, and with Thanksgiving week on the 21st, I was like ‘I’ll do the wallet’ because it popped up when I went online as [an available] product.” The transaction appeared to work online, but when Driscoll attempted to use it to board the Broad Street Line, she was declined.

Explaining to the SEPTA customer service reps at the station that she filled her Travel Wallet online, Driscoll said they calmly replied, “That’s impossible. You couldn’t have loaded this online.”

Driscoll had hit a bug in SEPTA Key’s system, letting her add money to her account before that function was fully activated. Later, the online system prevented her from reloading her weekly pass, a subsequent error stemming from her Travel Wallet snafu. Eventually, after multiple talks with SEPTA service reps, she got things squared away and is back to a monthly pass.

Driscoll said she understands that bugs happen—she recognizes that the program is still in a testing phase—but still found the service representatives’ blanket refusals to accept her account of what happened frustrating. She tried in person, in tweets to @SEPTA_Social, and finally over the phone.

“When I called [the next day], they were still sticking to this point that it was impossible that I couldn’t have done it online. Then they admitted it was their system that messed up, and that they were able to do it online. So, I kinda felt gaslighted,” she said with a laugh.

O’Brien admitted to PlanPhilly that there were problems with the website, and some functionalities may seem available before they are actually ready. “Part of the problem with what they can see and what people are figuring out on the web is that there are some functionalities related to Travel Wallet that if you can figure out how to do it, you can do it,” said O’Brien. These haven’t been announced yet, he said, because “it’s not fully functional and there may be bugs related to it, so people could have problems.”