Ticket machines charge laser card but no ticket!

[Thomas the Tank]

This morning went to get my 7 day ticket from a ticket machine in Coolmine Station. Inserted Laser card, but after a minute of doing nothing a message came up saying that there was a problem contacting the bank to authorise the transaction and the attempt to purchase the ticket failed. Went over to the counter and purchased a day return instead. Come into work, check the online banking and €19.30 has left my account (price of the 7 day ticket) but I've no ticket to show for it! :mad:

Rang IE. Got told to ring Coolmine station. Rang the station, lady took my name and number and promised to call me back to "see what they could do for me". No call back needless to say. Have just attempted to call Coolmine station and there's no reply.

So to recap, I've paid €19.30 for a ticket that doesn't exist, an extra €4.20 for a day return ticket and I can't get a hold of anyone in IE. I'm p*ssed off with this shower as usual. Oh and Docklands train picked up where it left off last week by being 7 minutes late this morning.

[Mark Gleeson]

There is a chance the banking system will resolve itself, normally when a laser transaction goes through you see your available balance go down but no transaction is shown. The clearing system might reverse itself tonight.

Don't ring Coolmine, its classic pass the book routine, ring 01 703 2601. Coolmine haven't a clue, head office in Connolly station monitor every TVM and can confirm what happened, the clerks in Coolmine don't even have a key for the machine

They will need to the time, the machine number in Coolmine, the one on the left is always number 1 and the lasercard number. They can't do anything without those details

[Thomas the Tank]

Cheers Mark. You could well be right about the laser transaction righting itself. I'll give it a day or two and see does it reverse out before ranting further :o

[Mark Gleeson]

Rant away, the guys in IE who program the TVM's will likely read the thread between now and tomorrow morning

[ColmmacO]

Thats happened me a few times. Always at coolmine.

In fairness to them It has never been charged. So I'd say what happened was your bank / IR havent had the time to cancel the transaction.
Sometimes when that happens at an atm you'll see two transactions on your account, one cancelling the other.
Most likely, the bank hasnt had a chance to cancel it yet.

[Thomas Ralph]

Chances are good the authorisation will cancel off in a day or two although it could take up to a week. (On Bank of Ireland online banking, an authorisation will appear as "Laser TX", whereas the transaction going through will be marked as "LR DDMM Merchant_name".)