go_gentle: (Default)
just a girl who's afraid of the dark ([personal profile] go_gentle) wrote2010-11-01 06:56 pm

in which I vent

so, I have a monthly T pass, because I commute every day, right? and I buy them online, and this was the first month that I tried the automated version, where they just bill your credit card and upload a new pass automatically. So on the 20th, I got an email reminding me they were going to bill me, which I thought was very thoughtful of them, and on the 26th, when I tapped through the gate, I saw the message that my pass had been updated, and I thought all was well.

Scene: This morning (ie, the first of November). I'm running a little bit late, and the T station is full of people buying passes. I fell very smug about having already taken care of that! But when I tap my card, I get the angry buzzing noise and the "not enough funds!" message. I say, "WHAT THE SHIT". Except, 8am, so it's more like, "blergh what the shit". So I have to put a few bucks on my card so I can, you know, get to work. It's not a big deal, except my tolerance for dealing with basically anything at 8am on a Monday morning is basically non-existent.

I checked at work, and the online system thinks I have a November pass (and thus wouldn't sell me one even if I was willing to buy another), and my credit card's been billed.

On my way home, I checked my card on the fare vending machine, and there are two lines of passes listed. One, from September 1 to October 31, and one for October 1 to October 31. So it looks like they sold me a second October pass. On October 26th. The guy manning the vending machines looked at them and asked, "why do you have two October passes?" to which I could only say "I have no clue." So I went to the ticket window.....where they told me since I bought it online, they couldn't help me, and I had to call.

So I called, and I spent 20 minutes talking to two different people (or on hold) who could only come up with "huh. That's really weird." (but promised to get their supervisor to manually push a pass tomorrow, and hopefully I will have it before it's time to go home.) (on the bright side, they did also tell me they'll reimburse me for any fares I have to pay while they try to get the pass to work.

BLARHG. tell me something cheerful?

[identity profile] thesamefire.livejournal.com 2010-11-02 12:28 am (UTC)(link)
when i arrived in boston a couple years ago, my friend came to pick me up and we specifically asked an mbta employee if she could tap her card twice to pay both our fares so i wouldn't have to deal with getting my own card right then, and he assured us it was possible, so she tapped it twice and we went through and then some other mbta employee came through and was all, "i saw you on the security cameras! one of you didn't pay a fare!" and i was just like "LISTEN BUDDY I JUST SPENT SIX HOURS ON A BUS IN THE WORST TRAFFIC, LET ME TELL YOU WHAT IS UP." and he eventually backed off but it was really not something i needed.