Unsuck DC Metro: Metro Fails, Fixes

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Metro Fails, Fixes

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Reader Richard realized he was getting overcharged when the peak of the peak started.

In the afternoon, I reverse commute home from Tysons Corner to McPherson Square. I start with a bus in Tysons, and the fare is $1.50. When I get to West Falls Church, I take the train to McPherson Square. The regular fare is $3.60, but with the 50-cent bus transfer discount it is only $3.10. When the peak of the peak began on Tuesday, I expected the fare to be 20 cents more at $3.30, however, it has been charging me $3.80 every time since Tuesday. It is ignoring my 50 cent transfer discount from the bus.

He contacted Metro customer service twice, but never got a response.

I sent a request to the SmarTrip customer service center last Tuesday evening and have not heard back. I sent a request through the normal Contact Us form on Metro's website Thursday morning and still have not heard back.

On Tuesday, he emailed interim GM Sarles about the issue, which seemed to work:

I received an email from Steven Holland who is the director of Customer Service, Sales, and Fare Media Services that says an engineer confirmed the problem and has been working on it. It will be fixed. He said he will stay in touch with me to make sure I get the money credited back to my account.

Yesterday, we received the following from Richard:

It's been fixed! It deducted the correct amount tonight.

Comments (8)

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+7 Vote up Vote down

dan · 762 weeks ago

Maybe we should all start emailing Sarles about hot trains...

+4 Vote up Vote down

Matt G · 762 weeks ago

@Dan, yeah. Yesterday a 6 car train turned into a 4 car train at 6am because two consecutive cars (1000 and 5000 series each) were hot as blazes. You should have seen the last car of the train and all the people piled in it.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

0 Vote up Vote down

Dino · 748 weeks ago

They are not going to fix, it is almost winter!

+3 Vote up Vote down

Godsend Conspirator · 762 weeks ago

if you can't stand the heat, get out of DC!

P.S. I just registered my smart trip, will be interesting to monitor the transactions.

P.P.S. I'm the guy who asked a question in the Free Parking post about how to get a broken SmarTrip transferred to a new one; I accidently clicked "Report card as BROKEN" instead of "Report card as LOST/STOLEN", which means I'll have to send it in before I get my replacement. BUT, for some stupid reason, I was able to report the same card a SECOND time as "LOST/STOLEN", so we'll see what happens. There was $35 on it. I will most likely get one card in the mail with $25 on it due to my reporting it twice. Just a hunch.

+4 Vote up Vote down

anonymous · 762 weeks ago

While I'm glad to see Metro fixed the glitch, it's terrible that someone had to go all the way to the top to get something done about it. I think Mr Sarles has bigger fish to fry--many of them were swimming around Foggy Bottom this morning.

+5 Vote up Vote down

BRLou · 762 weeks ago

What about all the people who didn't report the error because they actually thing Metro would be honest? SOL for them.

-5 Vote up Vote down

Miranda · 762 weeks ago

I wonder how much their "errors" steal from us each year. I need to pay closer attention. http://washingtondcfashion.blogspot.com/

0 Vote up Vote down

anon · 762 weeks ago

I'm glad it was"fixed" and deducts the right amount now, but this guy - and obviously the scores of other people this system completely screwed over - is owed some money.

It's bad enough this problem even occurred, but this was not a one-time problem, was it? It was a rip off, plain and simple. Metro was robbing this guy of his 50 cents each time.