Fri, Jul. 26th, 2013, 08:28 pm

siderea When I showed up at Davis Square Station today to go to work (around 1:05pm) I discovered my July LinkPass -- which I had been using all month -- had disappeared off my CharlieCard. Not only did the Davis Square subway turnstyles report my card had "Not enough value", so did the fare machine on the bus I got on at the other end.



The same thing had happened last month, only because I was out of town the last week of the month, I only found out about the problem a day or two before the end of the month.



I got my own personal pass situation straightened out now, but I get the impression a lot of people had this happen to them, and the MBTA hasn't realized it (see below the cut). So did this happen to you?



From work, I called the MBTA's customer service line for online pass sales. I have a monthly subscription for a LinkPass, through the MBTA's website. The nice fellow I spoke to there said they were getting a lot of reports of this. He called up my account, and as he expected, my July pass was missing, but I already had my August pass. Apparently, something about how they transmitted/recorded the August pass overwrote the July pass. He explained that this shouldn't happen, that cards have "space" for two passes, but something was going wrong at the T. And that the online pass sales customer service people weren't actually the T (the T outsources online sales) so there wasn't much they could do, and they'd alerted the T, but it wasn't fixed yet.



I offered to take the problem to the T directly, because holy crap this is not okay. I paid plenty enough for the pass already; I'm not amused to lose four business days and a weekend worth of time off it (20% of the month!). And I'm certainly not okay with it happening again.



So I called the T's main customer service number, eventually I was bounced to the T Pass Sales office in Downtown Crossing, a fact I discovered when the nice woman I was talking to, who had called up my account and said "But I can see it's still got July on it...!" asked if I could just bring the offending pass "here". As it happened, my last patient of the day canceled, so, yes, I could and did. First I printed out my emailed receipts for my July and August LinkPasses.



When I got to Maverick to get on the train to DTX, of course my pass didn't work; I told the T staffer there, and she said, "Yeah, none of them are working right now, just go in behind somebody."



At DTX, there was some investigation into what was going on, a lot of headscratching, frowning at the computer, and ultimately I was given a new T-pass, with both my paid-for LinkPasses on it. The woman I had spoken on the phone to told me that I was (only) the second person today to bring this problem to them; she was surprised to hear my report about what the telephone support person and the station attendant at Maverick had both told me.



Random things I learned:



1) The online pass sales support guy asked me if I had my pass through Benefit Strategies. (I'm pretty sure that I used to -- I was laid off from that job in 2010, but this might be the same CharlieCard. I'd thought I'd gotten a replacement card when I had to start paying for my passes myself, but maybe I misremember.) So maybe the problem affects BenStrat customers?



2) The online pass sales office and the regular t-pass sales office are two completely independent departments have have nothing to do with one another. Indeed, initially both of the two people I spoke to at the DTX t-pass sales office thought that they would not be able to see on their computer anything I had purchased through the website.



3) It is possible for customer service staff at the DTX office to see on their computers passes you've bought through the website. If they tell you they can't, tell them to check "the 'Manage' screen", which is not the default. I suspect they can only see passes delivered to the card, not ones on order but not yet delivered. But they certainly can see the present status of your card, however you put value on it.



4) If you sign up for a monthly t-pass subscription on the website, and you do it before the 15th of the month, you will get the pass for the current month; wait till after the 15th to sign up, if you want to start the following month. When I showed up at Davis Square Station today to go to work (around 1:05pm) I discovered my July LinkPass -- which I had been using all month -- had disappeared off my CharlieCard. Not only did the Davis Square subway turnstyles report my card had "Not enough value", so did the fare machine on the bus I got on at the other end.The same thing had happened last month, only because I was out of town the last week of the month, I only found out about the problem a day or two before the end of the month.I got my own personal pass situation straightened out now, but I get the impression a lot of people had this happen to them, and the MBTA hasn't realized it (see below the cut). So did this happen to you? From work, I called the MBTA's customer service line for online pass sales. I have a monthly subscription for a LinkPass, through the MBTA's website. The nice fellow I spoke to there said they were getting a lot of reports of this. He called up my account, and as he expected, my July pass was missing, but I already had my August pass. Apparently, something about how they transmitted/recorded the August pass overwrote the July pass. He explained that this shouldn't happen, that cards have "space" for two passes, but something was going wrong at the T. And that the online pass sales customer service people weren't actually the T (the T outsources online sales) so there wasn't much they could do, and they'd alerted the T, but it wasn't fixed yet.I offered to take the problem to the T directly, because holy crap this is not okay. I paid plenty enough for the pass already; I'm not amused to lose four business days and a weekend worth of time off it (20% of the month!). And I'm certainly not okay with it happening again.So I called the T's main customer service number, eventually I was bounced to the T Pass Sales office in Downtown Crossing, a fact I discovered when the nice woman I was talking to, who had called up my account and said "But I can see it's still got July on it...!" asked if I could just bring the offending pass "here". As it happened, my last patient of the day canceled, so, yes, I could and did. First I printed out my emailed receipts for my July and August LinkPasses.When I got to Maverick to get on the train to DTX, of course my pass didn't work; I told the T staffer there, and she said, "Yeah, none of them are working right now, just go in behind somebody."At DTX, there was some investigation into what was going on, a lot of headscratching, frowning at the computer, and ultimately I was given a new T-pass, with both my paid-for LinkPasses on it. The woman I had spoken on the phone to told me that I was (only) the second person today to bring this problem to them; she was surprised to hear my report about what the telephone support person and the station attendant at Maverick had both told me.Random things I learned:1) The online pass sales support guy asked me if I had my pass through Benefit Strategies. (I'm pretty sure that I used to -- I was laid off from that job in 2010, but this might be the same CharlieCard. I'd thought I'd gotten a replacement card when I had to start paying for my passes myself, but maybe I misremember.) So maybe the problem affects BenStrat customers?2) The online pass sales office and the regular t-pass sales office are two completely independent departments have have nothing to do with one another. Indeed, initially both of the two people I spoke to at the DTX t-pass sales office thought that they would not be able to see on their computer anything I had purchased through the website.3) It is possible for customer service staff at the DTX office to see on their computers passes you've bought through the website. If they tell you they can't, tell them to check "the 'Manage' screen", which is not the default. I suspect they can only see passes delivered to the card, not ones on order but not yet delivered. But they certainly can see the present status of your card, however you put value on it.4) If you sign up for a monthly t-pass subscription on the website, and you do it before the 15th of the month, you will get the pass for the current month; wait till after the 15th to sign up, if you want to start the following month. Sat, Jul. 27th, 2013 02:16 am (UTC)

davidn Thanks for sharing this information! I was impressed (and frankly astonished) by someone at the T sounding like they knew what they were doing, then you mentioned that the helpline was an outside agency and suddenly the world all made sense again :) Thanks for sharing this information! I was impressed (and frankly astonished) by someone at the T sounding like they knew what they were doing, then you mentioned that the helpline was an outside agency and suddenly the world all made sense again :) Sat, Jul. 27th, 2013 02:32 am (UTC)

siderea Prepare for your world to be rocked: the woman I spoke to on the phone at DTX, while she didn't know about what was transpiring out there with the passes (I assume because most subscribers are through the web, and calling that number) definitely seemed to know what she was doing with the computer and the sales office's business processes. She was apologetic and informative and took responsibility for trying to make things as right as possible.



Also, I have +3 on diplomatic rolls vs. bureaucrats.



Edited at 2013-07-27 02:33 am (UTC) Prepare for your world to be rocked: the woman I spoke to on the phone at DTX, while she didn't know about what was transpiring out there with the passes (I assume because most subscribers are through the web, and calling that number) definitely seemed to know what she was doing with the computer and the sales office's business processes. She was apologetic and informative and took responsibility for trying to make things as right as possible.Also, I have +3 on diplomatic rolls vs. bureaucrats.