Ventra - Bugs, Feedback, and Questions

[Guest ctafan630]

I have two questions reagrding the rollout of Ventra:

1) Are balances from the Chicago Card supposed to automatically transfer to the Ventra Card after activation or do you have to call CTA to get the balance transferred?

2) How is the Metra Link Up pass going to work now that the CTA is doing away with the magnetic stripe cards. I could not find information about this anywhere on the CTA website.

[MarioM]

I have two questions reagrding the rollout of Ventra:

1) Are balances from the Chicago Card supposed to automatically transfer to the Ventra Card after activation or do you have to call CTA to get the balance transferred?

2) How is the Metra Link Up pass going to work now that the CTA is doing away with the magnetic stripe cards. I could not find information about this anywhere on the CTA website.

1) Balances from Chicago Card Plus accounts are supposed to transfer over after you complete the step where you activate the card that Ventra sent you over the phone. It may take a little while after you call (often under an hour).

Balances from regular Chicago Cards will not transfer over. In order to transfer a regular Chicago Card balance, you either have to go to one of the balance transfer events in the park or mail your old card in to Ventra in January.

See:http://www.transitchicago.com/news/default.aspx?Month=&Year=&Category=2&ArticleId=3205

2) According to Jon Hilkevitch Metra riders will receive magnetic stripe cards through November and will receive Ventra Link Up cards in December.

[owine]

Second Ventra card for our household arrived last night. Called in to activate around 7 PM with no problems. However, as with the first card that arrived, it is taking an awful long time for the balance/pass to transfer. For the first card, it took about 20 hours. For this second card, we are at 14 hours and counting. At lease the CCP is still active during this window.

[Busjack]

Sun Times said that Cubic is running the call center. Probably Cubic is also running the computers. Maybe CTA could get Cubic to perform its contract and stop dumping on the consumers.

[Amtrak41]

My Ventra account page has a button for Prepaid Debit Account (which I'll NEVER use-thank you).

What about the Transit account ? There is no equivalent button for that.

[BusHunter]

I was using a ventra card for the first time yesterday. At first my card wouldn't scan, then it would give me stop notices, each trip about four tries before it accepted the card. Then it occurred to me, that if you look at the ventra reader there only appears to be one sensor on the bottom of the reader versus three chicago card sensors equally placed around the target. So if you take your ventra card when boarding hold it so that the black swipe strip on the rear is at the bottom of the reader you then can board in one touch. So far I've had no problems since I've done that.

[Guest ctafan630]

1) Balances from Chicago Card Plus accounts are supposed to transfer over after you complete the step where you activate the card that Ventra sent you over the phone. It may take a little while after you call (often under an hour).

Balances from regular Chicago Cards will not transfer over. In order to transfer a regular Chicago Card balance, you either have to go to one of the balance transfer events in the park or mail your old card in to Ventra in January.

See:http://www.transitchicago.com/news/default.aspx?Month=&Year=&Category=2&ArticleId=3205

2) According to Jon Hilkevitch Metra riders will receive magnetic stripe cards through November and will receive Ventra Link Up cards in December.

Thanks Mario for that help.

[jajuan]

I was using a ventra card for the first time yesterday. At first my card wouldn't scan, then it would give me stop notices, each trip about four tries before it accepted the card. Then it occurred to me, that if you look at the ventra reader there only appears to be one sensor on the bottom of the reader versus three chicago card sensors equally placed around the target. So if you take your ventra card when boarding hold it so that the black swipe strip on the rear is at the bottom of the reader you then can board in one touch. So far I've had no problems since I've done that.

For me, as long as I hold my card close to the black sensor with the stripe of the card facing the sensor, the reader accepts my card regardless of which angle I hold it when I tap.

[owine]

CTA reversed the Monday deadline so you can now buy new plastic fare cards and reload Chicago Cards at the vending machines. Silly to do this on Wednesday.

[BusHunter]

I guess 10,000 calls to ventra on monday was too much for them.

[Busjack]

CTA reversed the Monday deadline so you can now buy new plastic fare cards and reload Chicago Cards at the vending machines. Silly to do this on Wednesday.

Tribune story.

I guess 10,000 calls to ventra on monday was too much for them.

It wasn't so much that as that the story went viral this morning. Apparently sending out Brian Steele to the CTA Tattler and Tammy Chase to other media outlets with the company line that the customers weren't using the phone tree didn't snuff the problem out.

The other item was that there is supposed to be another round of e-mails for CC and CC+ registered users who did not activate yet.

[Kevin]

My Ventra account page has a button for Prepaid Debit Account (which I'll NEVER use-thank you).

What about the Transit account ? There is no equivalent button for that.

There are buttons on that same page to add transit value, a pass, or enable autoload. (Yes, this page is poorly designed. And the Ventra site is working extra slow for me today.)

[Amtrak41]

Thanks Kevin, but my Manage Account page does not have those Blue buttons.

"Current Transit Balance" is over on the left where that would be.

I also get Account : Closed". I tried to register, and it says "You are already registered".

[Busjack]

Thanks Kevin, but my Manage Account page does not have those Blue buttons.

"Current Transit Balance" is over on the left where that would be.

I also get Account : Closed". I tried to register, and it says "You are already registered".

The already registered makes sense, since you got the card in the mail, but was your card properly activated?

[Amtrak41]

Thanks guys.

It was pre-registered, I got an access code, signed in, loaded a funding source, but forgot to call back 1-888-824-8802 to "Activate" with access code. Just did that. I'll give it a few hours, because I signed in right afterward, and no change.

I do hope it is not this bad with SEPTA:

http://www.septa.org/fares/npt/project-timeline.html

[Busjack]

The updated Tribune article said at the end:

The CTA said that because it found that many original Chicago Card/Chicago Card Plus e-mail addresses are no longer valid, those customers who have not received a card or e-mail may wish to purchase a card from a retailer, train station or online at ventrachicago.com.

However, the purchase of a card from a retailer or train station doesn't seem to make sense if the reports on the home page are correct in stating that a balance cannot be transferred from a CCP other than by activating the Ventra card sent in association with the CCP account.

[Kevin]

Tried to load value on my Ventra card using the web site this evening. So much for that idea.

At least the Ventra site is proving to be a gold mine of examples of what not to do when designing software.

[Busjack]

Tried to load value on my Ventra card using the web site this evening. So much for that idea.

At least the Ventra site is proving to be a gold mine of examples of what not to do when designing software.

Unfortunately. I've encountered stuff like that on other websites lately, including Treasury Direct and BCBSIL. Maybe because of the government shutdown or debt limit, Treasury isn't taking transactions. Well, so long as my bank account wasn't charged....and the interest rate wasn't so great.

healthcare.gov supposedly isn't much better.

I also know someone who lost an email and monster.com accounts tonight, because they were set up in such a way that the password recovery message paths were circular. At least she claims to have 800 numbers.

BTW, now that CTA has succeeded in putting the blame on Cubic, maybe Cubic should provide CC and CCP card holders with a good will offer of restitution out of its own pocket, such as $50 bonus transit value.

[Amtrak41]

Activating a new credit card is not supposed to be this horror show.

The card comes in the mail, call the 800-number on the sticker to activate.

Signon on the bank's website with 16-digit number, Expry, CVV, security questions, establish on line ID / pswd, DONE.

With Ventra, they assign you a user ID, then a Registration process, an Activation process, and the mysterious Access Code.

Who's to blame? Metabank, Cubic, CTA, Rahmy -- for allowing customer rollout with all this crap and with a hard and fast timetable to get off old media ?

[owine]

Sorry, this is not hard. I have talked to five people who figured the CCP transition out just fine. The shipping delays, transfer delays and phone operators are a mess, but the activation process is not difficult.

[jajuan]

Unfortunately. I've encountered stuff like that on other websites lately, including Treasury Direct and BCBSIL. Maybe because of the government shutdown or debt limit, Treasury isn't taking transactions. Well, so long as my bank account wasn't charged....and the interest rate wasn't so great.

healthcare.gov supposedly isn't much better.

I also know someone who lost an email and monster.com accounts tonight, because they were set up in such a way that the password recovery message paths were circular. At least she claims to have 800 numbers.

BTW, now that CTA has succeeded in putting the blame on Cubic, maybe Cubic should provide CC and CCP card holders with a good will offer of restitution out of its own pocket, such as $50 bonus transit value.

The difference with healthcare.gov is those glitches were anticipated because of the large numbers of people were expecting to go through the website as has happened and more people and resources are being put in place as needed to work through those issues. The problems there were mainly easily fixed computer and technical glitches not incompetence of the humans in charge of the services offered. CTA can't say that in terms of Ventra apparently as far as having a working contingency for when things went wrong. The folks handling the additional rollout of the Affordable Care Act were at least able to say to folks they could go directly to their state's individual healthcare sites which were working with relatively few glitches.

[Amtrak41]

3 million in New York State are eligible for ACA, which has a 180-day enrollment, yet they got 10 million hits from NYS the first day. I suspect some right-wingers were deliberately gunking up the works.

A too aggressive a roll-out and miserable IT skills in volume handling and Business side call center operations are to blame here, and were totally avoidable.

[Busjack]

,,,

Who's to blame? Metabank, Cubic, CTA, Rahmy -- for allowing customer rollout with all this crap and with a hard and fast timetable to get off old media ?

Essentially who is to blame is, as Kevin implied, whoever set up the computer system. Thus, my guess is First Data. MetaBank is, of course, First Data's captive bank.

Noting jajuan's comment, First Data, through Cubic, should have had it hands on CTA's database of registered CC and CCP holders, and hence should have known how many cards it was supposed to send out, and when those cards would be received and people would try to activate them.

First Data then apparently treated the best customers, those with registered CC and CCP cards the worst, with a haphazard email system and an overly complex activation sequence. People buying from venders didn't have to go through that, but just had to register their cards.

Given the above failures, the call center was overwhelmed, but CTA only said maybe last Tuesday that Cubic was running the call center. Through Wednesday at noon, CTA put the onus on the customers that they weren't using the call tree properly.

Of course, CTA failed in its responsibility to monitor its contractor, but instead sent out Steele and Chase to try to paper it over. That is nothing new. The only question is why Claypool changed positions at about noon yesterday, especially, as it was noted, and again as usual, the issue wasn't even discussed at the board meeting that just ended when the announcement was made.

Also strange is that while the news reports said that CTA made a statement, there wasn't a press release posted on transitchicago.com.

Some people on CTA Tattler said "is there going to be a lawsuit," to which my reply was that this has all the hallmarks of another NABI lawsuit.

[owine]

I bet the delay falls on whoever is subbed out to print and mail the cards. By the time you receive the email with your username and password, you already have a card number assigned. I presume that means the physical card has been printed as well, which means the delay is with that mailing process. Maybe Claypool had dry mouth and couldn't lick all the envelopes closed? Unfortunately, none of the envelopes that came to my residence had postmarks to indicate date received/handled by USPS.

But let's get one thing straight here: keeping customer contact information up to date is not the responsibility of the CTA. Anybody who has done CRM on this large scale knows the nightmares of keeping people's contact information up to date. Ignoring correspondence? Also not the fault of the CTA, Cubic, First Data, Second Data, MetaBank or MegaJank.

[owine]

Unfortunately. I've encountered stuff like that on other websites lately, including Treasury Direct and BCBSIL. Maybe because of the government shutdown or debt limit, Treasury isn't taking transactions. Well, so long as my bank account wasn't charged....and the interest rate wasn't so great.

healthcare.gov supposedly isn't much better.

I also know someone who lost an email and monster.com accounts tonight, because they were set up in such a way that the password recovery message paths were circular. At least she claims to have 800 numbers.

BTW, now that CTA has succeeded in putting the blame on Cubic, maybe Cubic should provide CC and CCP card holders with a good will offer of restitution out of its own pocket, such as $50 bonus transit value.

While acknowledging that $50 is a ridiculous amount, I wonder what the actual cost per dollar is to give "free" transit value. In other words, based on the usage patters and abandoned balance rates, how much of every free dollar would they expect to be used?