News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 02, 2020
A Message to Our Readers
 8.5K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
EarthCam Time-Lapse Documents Rafael Viñoly-Designed New Stanford Hospital Construction
 39K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
Resort Town
 4.8K     0 

I loaded my card with $20 online. Here I thought it would be instant as I used my credit card to do so. However, that is not the case. It can take up to 24 hours as I recall.
Anyway, so I wasn't able to use it when I got on the bus 1 hour later. That was disappointing.
So, I figured, oh well, I'll use up the $20 another time, as I go out to Mississauga occasionally to visit family.

So a month later, I go to Union to board the bus to Mississauga. Tap my card. Not enough funds! The balance had been refunded to my card, because I hand't used the $20 I loaded within a week. WTF? That makes no sense at all! So basically this card is only good for who? Commuters? I got the card for ease of use! No lines, etc.
 
khristopher said:
I loaded my card with $20 online. Here I thought it would be instant as I used my credit card to do so. However, that is not the case. It can take up to 24 hours as I recall.
Anyway, so I wasn't able to use it when I got on the bus 1 hour later. That was disappointing.
So, I figured, oh well, I'll use up the $20 another time, as I go out to Mississauga occasionally to visit family.

So a month later, I go to Union to board the bus to Mississauga. Tap my card. Not enough funds! The balance had been refunded to my card, because I hand't used the $20 I loaded within a week. WTF? That makes no sense at all! So basically this card is only good for who? Commuters? I got the card for ease of use! No lines, etc.
Click to expand...

It's being rolled out in the worst way possible. Last winter I had a work term by Queen's park so it was awesome I could always use my presto coming home and going to work (Finch). But now that I work at St.Clair I can't hardly use my PRESTO. They should've just added PRESTO to the whole subway system as a start, and not just at a few downtown stations and terminal stations.

As for your problem I had a similar thing happen where I loaded my card and then tried to tap onto a bus. I was let on the bus because it was my las tap that allowed me to go into negative, but then my card never reloaded because I was in a negative balance :mad: so then I had to trek to Union on my free time just to get it resolved and pay the negative balance plus the fee. This is annoying because I clearly paid the $60 before I tapped on and went into negative balance. I can understand that it takes 24Hrs to load, but they should really have a system in place that verifies whether you refilled the card before you went into negative balance.
 
khristopher said:
So a month later, I go to Union to board the bus to Mississauga. Tap my card. Not enough funds! The balance had been refunded to my card, because I hand't used the $20 I loaded within a week. WTF? That makes no sense at all! So basically this card is only good for who? Commuters? I got the card for ease of use! No lines, etc.
Click to expand...
Set up an autoload - then it's painless.

Certainly a stupid design with the 24-hour to 168-hour window to get the $ - but it's been very clearly communicated. We've discussed it extensively in this thread.

The other alternatives if you don't have 24-hours to wait, is to load it manually either from an agent or a machine. Personally, I just made sure I added money about 2 days before I needed to use it, before I set up autoload.
 
nfitz said:
Set up an autoload - then it's painless.

Certainly a stupid design with the 24-hour to 168-hour window to get the $ - but it's been very clearly communicated. We've discussed it extensively in this thread.

The other alternatives if you don't have 24-hours to wait, is to load it manually either from an agent or a machine. Personally, I just made sure I added money about 2 days before I needed to use it, before I set up autoload.
Click to expand...

If it hadn't been discussed on this thread, I wouldn't have known all these problems. What about the general public??

And what about when you don't know 24 hours ahead of time when to reload? And as khristopher demonstrated, you cannot do it ahead of time unless you're sure you're going to use it soon.

Poor, poor design. I still use Presto, and I believe in the whole concept, but it's been very badly designed.
 
When I lived in Port Credit and used Presto to get to Toronto it would reload automatically whenever I tapped in with no delay; are the GO station units set up differently from those on GO buses?
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
If it hadn't been discussed on this thread, I wouldn't have known all these problems. What about the general public??
Click to expand...
It clearly says on the website every time you try and do this:

1. Purchase the value you want to add by following the steps below.
2. Wait up to 24 hours.
​
How is that not clear?

Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
And what about when you don't know 24 hours ahead of time when to reload?
Click to expand...
Then go to an agent at the station, or use a self-serve machine.

Or just set up the autoload. It's painless once it's running.

Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
Poor, poor design. I still use Presto, and I believe in the whole concept, but it's been very badly designed.
Click to expand...
There are other cards that are the same. I believe Oyster not only do you have to wait to the next day, you have to tell them ahead of time, exactly which station your going to tap on at, to get your money.

DHLawrence85 said:
When I lived in Port Credit and used Presto to get to Toronto it would reload automatically whenever I tapped in with no delay; are the GO station units set up differently from those on GO buses?
Click to expand...
Is that an autoload, or the one-time load which is what we were discussing above.
 
DHLawrence85 said:
Autoload, hence "it would reload automatically". Not every time I tapped in, of course, but when it was necessary.
Click to expand...
Yes, works very well ...

... the problem is with the manual load - which states that you have to wait 24 hours after you set it up before you can tap in.
 
nfitz said:
It clearly says on the website every time you try and do this:

1. Purchase the value you want to add by following the steps below.
2. Wait up to 24 hours.
​
How is that not clear?
Click to expand...

If it were clear, there would not so many people continuously having this same problem.

Yesterday I used GO and went to the (one and only) PRESTO loading machine in Union. I put my card in the slot, hit load with debit, popped my debit card in the slot, and then the main screen changed to a red circle and said "THIS TERMINAL IS OUT OF SERVICE". However the screen on the debit machine was still prompting me to type in my PIN. No idea what happened. They have been testing that machine for months and it clearly is still not working properly. So much for the convenience of PRESTO. My options were then to either get in a very long line to have an agent load my card which would mean I would certainly miss the train or to get in the very line for the TVM which would mean I had would not get a discount and probably miss the train too. I choose option three and just did not pay any fare. I think I'm just going to throw the card in the trash.
 
Jonny5 said:
I choose option three and just did not pay any fare. I think I'm just going to throw the card in the trash.
Click to expand...
So that means you'd have to line up every time - or risk getting caught, which wouldn't take long, as I seem to get checked every 10-15 rides.

Why not just set up autoload. Or fill up the card at the end of your train journey, instead of at Union and missing a train.
 
khristopher said:
I loaded my card with $20 online. Here I thought it would be instant as I used my credit card to do so. However, that is not the case. It can take up to 24 hours as I recall.
Anyway, so I wasn't able to use it when I got on the bus 1 hour later. That was disappointing.
So, I figured, oh well, I'll use up the $20 another time, as I go out to Mississauga occasionally to visit family.

So a month later, I go to Union to board the bus to Mississauga. Tap my card. Not enough funds! The balance had been refunded to my card, because I hand't used the $20 I loaded within a week. WTF? That makes no sense at all! So basically this card is only good for who? Commuters? I got the card for ease of use! No lines, etc.
Click to expand...

A similar thing happened to me. I put some money on the card in anticipation of a transit trip, but ended up not using it. Totally forgot about it for a whole month, until I suddenly received an email that said "E-Purse load confirmed" that looked exactly like every email they send you in confirmation of you putting money on the card. I thought Presto was randomly charging my credit card. Turns out, no, that was actually the refund. The word "refund" appeared NOWHERE on that email. Instead, there were words like "payment", "purchase" and "order". I mean, WTF. Is it so hard to make a second form letter?
 
bleeepbluuup said:
A similar thing happened to me. I put some money on the card in anticipation of a transit trip, but ended up not using it. Totally forgot about it for a whole month, until I suddenly received an email that said "E-Purse load confirmed" that looked exactly like every email they send you in confirmation of you putting money on the card. I thought Presto was randomly charging my credit card. Turns out, no, that was actually the refund. The word "refund" appeared NOWHERE on that email. Instead, there were words like "payment", "purchase" and "order". I mean, WTF. Is it so hard to make a second form letter?
Click to expand...
Apparently. It's ridiculous. Can we not implement anything correctly in Toronto?
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top