Presto self-serve machine spits out $4,000 receipt
Metrolinx blames ‘printing error’ after woman saw massive charge for much more than she paid
Metrolinx is blaming a “printing error” after a customer complained that a Presto machine appeared to try to charge her $4,000 for a $40 transaction.
Last Thursday, J.F. Garrard tried to put money on her Presto card at a self-serve reload machine at Bloor-Yonge station. She selected the option for $40, inserted her credit card and entered her PIN.
The machine then stopped working, Garrard said in an interview. An error message flashed on the screen and told her to check her receipt.
“When I looked at it, there was a $4,000 charge,” said Garrard, 31, who runs an independent publishing company. “I was angry, I was in a rush to leave. Now suddenly I had to buy tokens,” she said, because the machine was out of service and wouldn’t come back online.
When she got home, Garrard called her credit card company, which explained to her that the exorbitant charge had not gone through. In what she thought was a coincidence, she was told the company had put a hold on her card before she tried to use the Presto machine because of an unrelated security breach.
A spokesperson for Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency in charge of the Presto program, said that what happened to Garrard is “a very rare anomaly” that occurs when a customer’s payment is declined by their bank or credit card company.
Anne Marie Aikins said the machines should simply reject the transaction and show a charge of zero dollars on the receipt. Instead, in some instances, they show 100 times the amount of the requested reload value.
The problem is due to a software glitch and it appears to only occur with newer credit or debit cards.
In this case, the error was apparently triggered because Garrard’s credit card company had suspended her account due to the breach.
According to Aikins, the error only occurs on paper and the machines do not attempt to charge the inflated amount.
“We’ve absolutely confirmed” that no one has been overcharged, she said.
Aikins said Metrolinx learned of the problem about two weeks ago after receiving a complaint, and the agency is aware of about half a dozen similar incidents. Metrolinx plans to issue a software “patch” this week to resolve the issue.
“It’s an inconvenience, which we do apologize for. The system is still new, still working out its growing pains,” she said.
The rollout of the Presto system on Toronto’s transit network is a joint effort by Metrolinx and the TTC, and has frequently been tarnished by technical problems.
The Star reported in December that the self-serve reload machines, which allow customers to add value to their Presto cards using debit or credit cards, were malfunctioning at high rates. Aikins said that Presto has since issued a software patch that has significantly improved their reliability.
There are 75 of the machines on TTC property and Aikins say they are functional 95 per cent of the time. The machines are owned by Metrolinx and cost roughly $15,000 each.
They agency plans to deploy 250 “second generation” reload machines on the TTC this year. It says the new version will be more reliable.