Request ID: FOI-0668-2122 Date published: 04 August 2021
You asked
1) When parents top-up their children's TFL photocards and the child does not activate the order within the specified activation period, is the top-up payment refunded automatically or not?
2) Within what timeframe should TFL inform parents that their photocard order has failed and that their payment will be refunded to them?
3) How many complaints has TFL received for non activated orders which have not been refunded to the card holder?
4) What procedures are in place to ensure that all TFL photocard orders, which were not activated within the specified timeframe, are refunded to the card holder who made the payment to their child's photocard?
5) What is the annual total of non activated photocard payments to TFL which have not been refunded to card holders?
Clarification re timeframe for Qs 3 and 5: Financial year 2019/20 - ie 1st April 2019 to 31st March 2020 Financial year 2020/21 - ie 1st April 2020 to 31st March 2021 1st April 2021 to 22nd July 2021
6) What is the percentage of time taken up by TFL staff to deal with the issue of non activation of photocards and associated refunds?
We answered
TfL Ref: FOI-0668-2122
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 1st July 2021 asking for information about TfL photocard refunds.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.
I can confirm that we hold some of the information you require. Your questions are answered in turn below:
1) When parents top-up their children's TFL photocards and the child does not activate the order within the specified activation period, is the top-up payment refunded automatically or not?
Answer: We refund automatically - in some scenarios a manual refund is processed and the customer notified.
2) Within what timeframe should TFL inform parents that their photocard order has failed and that their payment will be refunded to them?
Answer: The email to inform the customer their order has failed goes out a few days after the end of the activation window (there is a grace period after the product expires - the exact time of the grace period is dependent on the product type).
3) How many complaints has TFL received for non activated orders which have not been refunded to the card holder? We subsequently agreed that this question relates to the Financial Year 2019/20 (i.e. 1st April 2019 to 31st March 2020); the Financial Year 2020/21 (i.e. 1st April 2020 to 31st March 2021); and the 1st April 2021 to 22nd July 2021.
Answer: We are not able to source the information to answer this question within the costs limit for responding to FOI requests, as set out under section 12 of the FOI Act. Under section 12, TfL is not required to supply information if it would cost more than £450 to determine if that information is held, and to then locate, retrieve or extract that information from elsewhere. This is calculated at a rate of £25 per hour, equivalent to 18 hours work. There is no specific classification in our complaints handling system to readily identify this type of complaint. Rather, they would labelled as “Fares & Ticketing” complaints among all the other fares and ticketing complaints. As there are thousands of such complaints in the time period specified it is not possible for us to locate and review them all within the costs limit to identify only those that are relevant to your request. In order to bring your request within the costs limit you may wish to reframe it to narrow its scope, or we could provide data on fares and ticketing complaints more generally.
4) What procedures are in place to ensure that all TFL photocard orders, which were not activated within the specified timeframe, are refunded to the card holder who made the payment to their child's photocard? Answer: This is an automated process. Our gateline system communicates with our photocard system i.e. whenever a product is collected or not-collected this is communicated back to our photocard system. This in turn triggers the appropriate actions within the photocard system. 5) What is the annual total of non activated photocard payments to TFL which have not been refunded to card holders? We subsequently agreed that this question relates to the Financial Year 2019/20 (i.e. 1st April 2019 to 31st March 2020); the Financial Year 2020/21 (i.e. 1st April 2020 to 31st March 2021); and the 1st April 2021 to 22nd July 2021.
Answer: I am afraid it is not possible to source the information to answer this question within the costs limit for answering FOI cases, as set above in relation to question 3. The information is not readily to hand and would require the manual review of a disproportionate number of records.
6) What is the percentage of time taken up by TFL staff to deal with the issue of non activation of photocards and associated refunds?
Answer: TfL does not hold this information. However, given the number of staff employed by TfL and the range and scale of our operations, the time taken up by staff on this specific activity as a percenatge of overall staff activity will be negligible.
Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.
Yours sincerely,
David Wells FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
