Ventra - Bugs, Feedback, and Questions

[Railwaymodeler]

What a lot of us at North Division are wondering, is what will this mean for the street criminals who currently sell used, expired, or hotlisted passes at major transfer points before the buses come through. Got assaulted once myself, for telling one of these street vermin to take his stolen pass and get out of my face.

Of course Pace management claims it is "too expensive" to put a supervisor at select transfer points, especially Washington/Sheridan. I guess being repeatedly sued is somehow less expensive.

Of course, there's the question of what to do if a card comes up as hotlisted, deactivated, or if someone uses their own contactless card that comes up as hotlisted or invalid. If it is a person's own blinker card, not through Ventra, confiscating it could mean serious legal trouble for the driver. As everyone here has seen repeatedly, the management will hang the driver out to dry for that.

Of course, with the sheer number of lawsuits against the company, one wonders if there will be a problem with credit card fraud, running charges through over and over. Given the problems noted with filing chargebacks and disputes, one does wonder if now Pace will use these cards illegally themselves.

[Busjack]

What a lot of us at North Division are wondering, is what will this mean for the street criminals who currently sell used, expired, or hotlisted passes at major transfer points before the buses come through. Got assaulted once myself, for telling one of these street vermin to take his stolen pass and get out of my face.

Of course Pace management claims it is "too expensive" to put a supervisor at select transfer points, especially Washington/Sheridan. I guess being repeatedly sued is somehow less expensive.

Of course, there's the question of what to do if a card comes up as hotlisted, deactivated, or if someone uses their own contactless card that comes up as hotlisted or invalid. If it is a person's own blinker card, not through Ventra, confiscating it could mean serious legal trouble for the driver. As everyone here has seen repeatedly, the management will hang the driver out to dry for that.

Of course, with the sheer number of lawsuits against the company, one wonders if there will be a problem with credit card fraud, running charges through over and over. Given the problems noted with filing chargebacks and disputes, one does wonder if now Pace will use these cards illegally themselves.

I doubt that Pace would use these illegally themselves (especially since it has abandoned responsibility for Ventra to CTA), but the question is what a driver would do if a card was not verifiable on the Ventra machine. In most instances,* if a gas pump does not find your credit card authorized,** you don't get gas.

___________

*There was the racket where the crooks covered the satellite dish, and then convinced the clerk that since the data link was not working, approve the transaction.

**Many also want your zip code to verify you are the cardholder.

[See Tea Eh]

Tell that to the people who own a Chicago Card. The equipment was not so outdated (it was installed specially for the Chicago Card) when the failures started to occur. The problem is not the reader it is the cards. Tell me this if a 30 day pass can barely function throughout the month 50 percent of the time, how do they expect these cards to work for months or years. I've known people who have been through 3 or 4 Chicago cards in a five year period. Of course as you state this is not the Chicago Card, and will ultimately be Ventra's headache. Let's just hope they don't start charging for additional cards.

And I've never had a smart card fail on me. I have smart cards for Chicago, Washington (DC), Seattle and LA (and I might be forgetting one or two in there). Whenever I visit a city where I already have a smart card, I use that same card, and it works.

Those who have already gone through 3 or 4 cards need to reconsider how they're taking care of their cards. If you treat them properly, they should last a very long time.

[Railwaymodeler]

I doubt that Pace would use these illegally themselves (especially since it has abandoned responsibility for Ventra to CTA), but the question is what a driver would do if a card was not verifiable on the Ventra machine. In most instances,* if a gas pump does not find your credit card authorized,** you don't get gas.

___________

*There was the racket where the crooks covered the satellite dish, and then convinced the clerk that since the data link was not working, approve the transaction.

**Many also want your zip code to verify you are the cardholder.

Problem is, if a card comes u invalid/stolen/hotlisted, the driver has to choose from the following: Confiscate the card and deny service, which will likely involve calling the garage and having police remove the passenger, which also delays all other passengers aboard. Such a problem has historically caused mutinies against the driver, and tempers do tend to flare. Or, allow the passenger to ride, which negates the purpose of a fare system in the first place. Or just deny service altogether and hand the card back. If it comes up as stolen, this is legally questionable.

Although low morale at North plays a part, many of the drivers I have talked to have the concern that this system is going to be a disaster because of the possibility of fraud with the cards. Was out to eat, used my bank debit card to buy lunch today. The place I went to now requires a signature for everything, and the guy explained that there's been a lot of problems with customers claiming they didn't spend money there, which either means stolen cards were used, or people are figuring out ways to con merchants using plastic. Given Waukegan, probably both.

[Busjack]

....Was out to eat, used my bank debit card to buy lunch today. The place I went to now requires a signature for everything, and the guy explained that there's been a lot of problems with customers claiming they didn't spend money there, which either means stolen cards were used, or people are figuring out ways to con merchants using plastic. Given Waukegan, probably both.

Somewhat surprising, in that places like Target and most grocery stores don't make you sign for under $20 or $30, and obviously they aren't gong to make you sign to ride the bus.

I suppose that Pace would have experience with bad CTA cards, although probably not so much at North, since there aren't any direct transfers with CTA there.

[jajuan]

Somewhat surprising, in that places like Target and most grocery stores don't make you sign for under $20 or $30, and obviously they aren't gong to make you sign to ride the bus.

I suppose that Pace would have experience with bad CTA cards, although probably not so much at North, since there aren't any direct transfers with CTA there.

Actually Target does have you signing on purchases less than $20 now. At least the one I went to does as I made a $14 or $15 purchase on Sunday and still got prompted by the POS terminal to put my signature.

As for Chicago Cards not working, I've seen folks stepping on the bus expecting their card to read clearly through a purse or thick wallet, which of course they don't always do. But when prompted by the driver to physically take the card from the wallet or purse and tap the card again the card worked. So sometimes the laziness of not pulling out the card as well as proper care and handling is also a factor. That does bring up another reason I'll choose to pay the one time 5 buck fee to purchase a separate Ventra card over loading a pass or fares to my debit card or credit card.

[MetroShadow]

And I've never had a smart card fail on me. I have smart cards for Chicago, Washington (DC), Seattle and LA (and I might be forgetting one or two in there). Whenever I visit a city where I already have a smart card, I use that same card, and it works.

Those who have already gone through 3 or 4 cards need to reconsider how they're taking care of their cards. If you treat them properly, they should last a very long time.

+1.

I have a Clipper Card (SF), a SmartTrip from DC/Baltimore, NYC's (which is 4 years old and still works great), a CC card here (that expired), and my pass. I've not had a problem thus far, and I don't anticipate a problem down the line.

Granted, you'll always have your defects, but it depends on how you take care of them in the long run. Going through 4 of them (as opposed to 4 of the same cell phones that are defective) under normal wear and tear will need to warrant how you're using it (magnets, interference, etc).

[Busjack]

+1.

I have a Clipper Card (SF), a SmartTrip from DC/Baltimore, NYC's (which is 4 years old and still works great), a CC card here (that expired), and my pass. I've not had a problem thus far, and I don't anticipate a problem down the line.

Theoretically, if all went to open standards systems, you would need only one card (and maybe none of the above). In that you noted that your CC card expired, having multiple cards would risk multiple forfeitures of remaining balances.

Back to the main topic, there is a Tribune article today that MetaBank was not going to charge a couple of the fees previously mentioned, but it wasn't because of the outcry, but because functionaries at the CTA somehow didn't know that the bank had waived them. Typical.

[Busjack]

You will be able to register online or by calling a toll-free number.

Call the toll-free number from a payphone and give your name and address as

Rahm Emanuel

121 N. LaSalle Street

Chicago, Illinois 60602

They say they will immediately activate your card. Obviously, they are not

going to check your ID over the phone or send investigators to the

address to see if you really live there. Use an address in another

city if you really want to throw them off the track!....

It took me a couple of days to comprehend this one.

The problem with doing this is that if the card is stolen, you probably will not be able to deactivate it, as I described in my response to BusHunter.

And if you remember that you registered as Rahm (not likely, but whatever), you would be shutting down his card, unless CTA asked for both the name and the card number.

[sw4400]

I love it!!! CTA is suddenly dropping two fees and they still get bit for their lies to the public!!!

Look at this comment from the Tribune article

Coco Bartholomew · Top Commenter

"Claypool said the Ventra debit card fees "are exactly the same as any other debit card fees associated with the one you have in your wallet, except in many instances (Ventra's fees are) lower."

- my bank sends paper statements for free.
- my bank does not charge me to withdraw money (though ATMs do if they are out of network).
- my bank does not charge me to deposit funds.
- my bank does not charge for phone calls.
- I lost my card, my bank replaced it for free, even though it was 100% my fault.

But ya, Ventra has lower fees."

CTA, people are now slowly but surely doing their homework now on this Debit Card "option". The only smart thing to do now is remove it from the Ventra package period. I think there is enough people with the knowledge now thanks to the media that nobody will apply for the Ventra Debit Card, instead just using the Transit Card and reloading it with cash.

[mkohut]

The Ventra Card will go down as one of the worse waste of money by the CTA..

Too spend 454 million dollars to save 5 million a year.

Reality its going to take 111 years to recover the money spend on it.

[Kevin]

Look at this comment from the Tribune article...

The commenter is comparing a bank account backed debit card against a pre-paid debit card. Not everyone can get a bank account. All pre-paid debit cards are crap to some degree.

[Busjack]

The Ventra Card will go down as one of the worse waste of money by the CTA..

Too spend 454 million dollars to save 5 million a year.

Reality its going to take 111 years to recover the money spend on it.

As pointed out before, they are paying $454 million for Cubic to take fare collection off the CTA's hands. Thus, the question is what it is costing CTA now, the implication that it is $50 million a year. Not just printing up transit cards, but the depreciation of all the fare collection equipment.

That's not even going to into Claypool's contention that the equipment itself and the chips in the Chicago Cards are obsolete, which I can't weigh one way or the other.

Some transit advocates used to advocate for free fares for everyone, but, based on the 2013 budget, in 2012 CTA collected $549 million in fare revenue. 7% or 8% to collect that might be high, but that suggestion would result in saving $45 million to forgo $549 million.

The commenter is comparing a bank account backed debit card against a pre-paid debit card. Not everyone can get a bank account. All pre-paid debit cards are crap to some degree.

True. However I noted elsewhere that probably anyone can get a checking account if they have the $50 or $100 starting deposit. Unless they maintain a sufficient balance so that checking account fees are waived, they'll have the free debit card at the expense of the checking account charges, however.

Someone did point out on the CTA Tattler the Bluebird card from American Express, apparently available at Walmart, which doesn't have most of these fees. I wonder, though, why people are then buying the fee-laden Walmart Money Card from GE Capital Bank.

[jajuan]

The commenter is comparing a bank account backed debit card against a pre-paid debit card. Not everyone can get a bank account. All pre-paid debit cards are crap to some degree.

Exactly the point that's been stressed too many times over already. But if he wishes to continue ignoring the debit card functions are optional and celebrate over something that doesn't change that Ventra is still coming.....

[BusHunter]

The Ventra Card will go down as one of the worse waste of money by the CTA..

Too spend 454 million dollars to save 5 million a year.

Reality its going to take 111 years to recover the money spend on it.

Obviously they never learned from the past. That when you start a program, you run a pilot to see how it works. I don't get it they did that with go lanes, the first ever transit card in 1994 piloted on the #53, and I believe the Chicago card too. To install the whole RTA system's worth of buses a ventra card reader without first testing it is extremely confident or dumb. Then to force the riders to pay $3 versus buying a Ventra card without testing it is amazing. When Ventra comes out and 90 percent of the riders are onboard what will they do if there is an equipment failure? It's like having a whole fleet of NABI's

[Busjack]

Obviously they never learned from the past. That when you start a program, you run a pilot to see how it works. I don't get it they did that with go lanes, the first ever transit card in 1994 piloted on the #53, and I believe the Chicago card too. To install the whole RTA system's worth of buses a ventra card reader without first testing it is extremely confident or dumb. Then to force the riders to pay $3 versus buying a Ventra card without testing it is amazing. When Ventra comes out and 90 percent of the riders are onboard what will they do if there is an equipment failure? It's like having a whole fleet of NABI's

In this case, if you are switching over a fare system, how do you run a pilot? Someone can use a Ventra card to enter the station at Howard, but not at Belmont for the return trip?

At least Pace has said several times that the two systems will work in parallel until the decision is made to can the old one.

[sw4400]

Someone did point out on the CTA Tattler the Bluebird card from American Express, apparently available at Walmart, which doesn't have most of these fees. I wonder, though, why people are then buying the fee-laden Walmart Money Card from GE Capital Bank.

Most likely because most people don't bother to read fine print. Call me a Consumer Advocate if you want, but when Ventra starts being sold where I work, all customers I come in contact with will know about that optional Debit Card before they open the package up and read how good it can be without reading that all important fine print. Whether they heed the advice or not is up to them.

[jajuan]

Most likely because most people don't bother to read fine print. Call me a Consumer Advocate if you want, but when Ventra starts being sold where I work, all customers I come in contact with will know about that optional Debit Card before they open the package up and read how good it can be without reading that all important fine print. Whether they heed the advice or not is up to them.

And again you may as well start right now with all other prepaid cards that Jewel sells. As for the comment that CTA and Pace are transitioning without a pilot, what's being done this year IS the pilot. Or did some of us ignore that Chicago Cards and magnetic strip passes and transit cards will still be accepted alongside Ventra on both CTA and Pace until the beginning of next year. So I think that means both TAs will be using the second part of this year to work out the kinks, which last I checked is the definition of a pilot run.

[Busjack]

Most likely because most people don't bother to read fine print. Call me a Consumer Advocate if you want, but when Ventra starts being sold where I work, all customers I come in contact with will know about that optional Debit Card before they open the package up and read how good it can be without reading that all important fine print. Whether they heed the advice or not is up to them.

Not if your new owner Cerberus tells you not to disparage the goods and services they decide to put next to the cash register.

Do you think that your coemployees at NABI are going to volunteer to testify for the counterclaimant that "yes, our product is junk?"

[sw4400]

Exactly the point that's been stressed too many times over already. But if he wishes to continue ignoring the debit card functions are optional and celebrate over something that doesn't change that Ventra is still coming.....

I am aware that the Debit Card function is optional, jajuan(I stated that several posts ago). What I am trying to do is spread the word about that optional Debit Card because potential people who see that paper stuffed into their Ventra package might apply for it without reading that fine print. That's where they get you, and appearantly I'm not the only one wanting to spread that word... the Tribune is as well as the gentleman who started the petition to remove that Debit Card option totally from the Ventra Card package.

Ventra can roll out the Transit Cards, fine... the point trying to be made is to educate Ventra buyers into that optional Debit card because they'll really sell it to you in normal print(clear your wallet out of multiple Credit/Debit Cards, don't carry your Checkbook around, travel on public transit and purchase stuff with the same card; this kind of bait), but all the way at the end is the fine print about the fees, and not a lot of people read it.

I bet I can even say you and Busjack don't read the fine print on everything you apply for/purchase, just as an example here. I'll be honest myself... I don't read the fine print on a lot of stuff.

[Busjack]

What I am trying to do is spread the word about that optional Debit Card because potential people who see that paper stuffed into their Ventra package might apply for it without reading that fine print. That's where they get you, and appearantly I'm not the only one wanting to spread that word... the Tribune is as well as the gentleman who started the petition to remove that Debit Card option totally from the Ventra Card package.

Looks like the Tribune is doing an adequate job on its own. I bet you would not have known about it if the Tribune had not made an FOIA request and published the results.

....

I bet I can even say you and Busjack don't read the fine print on everything you apply for/purchase, just as an example here. I'll be honest myself... I don't read the fine print on a lot of stuff.

Maybe not everything, but at least from experience I have a good idea what is going on. I don't have to read the Park District waiver every time I show up for yoga class, but I pretty much know that if I tried to sue the park district, I wouldn't collect.

I admitted elsewhere to having been caught in the Best-Buy Microsoft fraud, but I yelled on the telephone enough that MSN rescinded the charge, and the California Attorney General got a fraud settlement out of them, so it was a fraud.

No use going into that one, but as jajuan and I previously implied, you aren't putting notices all over the Jewel gift card rack.* Also, as jajuan and I have repeatedly noted, neither has any need for any prepaid debit card and at least in my case, for any Ventra card at all.

__________

*My mother has complained about several prepaid phone card scams.

[sw4400]

No use going into that one, but as jajuan and I previously implied, you aren't putting notices all over the Jewel gift card rack.* Also, as jajuan and I have repeatedly noted, neither has any need for any prepaid debit card and at least in my case, for any Ventra card at all.

__________

*My mother has complained about several prepaid phone card scams.

I'll be honest... I don't buy the Debit/Credit Gift Cards from our racks. The only ones I would are store/business gift cards(Jewel, Best Buy, Target, etc...). I am sorry about the prepaid phone scams your Mom had to endure(I speculate it was one of those companies I wouldn't trust because they just sound so small and popped up suddenly, something like TracPhone).

I've sold the Visa Gift Cards/American Express Gift Cards, maybe a Debit Card here and there. No customers have ever came back complaining about them, so I had little knowledge about fees and stuff there.

[Busjack]

I'll be honest... I don't buy the Debit/Credit Gift Cards from our racks. The only ones I would are store/business gift cards(Jewel, Best Buy, Target, etc...). I am sorry about the prepaid phone scams your Mom had to endure(I speculate it was one of those companies I wouldn't trust because they just sound so small and popped up suddenly, something like TracPhone).

One of them was TracFone, but surprisingly enough that isn't a popup, since it it owned by the world's richest billionaire, Carlos Slim, who owns most Latin American phone companies.

Also TracFone runs the U.S. Government's cellular lifeline program.

The stink there was that she was buying $90 year long cards, but they kept turning off her connection because she didn't use it enough. The response was "what good is having a phone for an emergency if it is disconnected when you have an emergency?" At least in this case, my sister, who had recommenced TracFone in the first place, was able to transfer the balance to her card.

[jajuan]

No I don't read the fine print on everything either but like in Busjack's case it's because I've already had the same or similar services and pretty much know what to expect. A lot of whom you're trying to save sw aren't trying to be saved otherwise the prepaid card and payday loan industries wouldn't still see high popularity. And even with the stink caused by the Tribune, folks aren't getting all the correct information or implications of what to expect given some of those fees, such as the ATM fees, would still have the possibility of being encountered by a checking account based card as evidenced by all my friends and relatives who say they only get cash when doing a store purchase to make sure they avoid any ATM fees. And that's due to them banking with a bank that has fewer ATM machines as say Chase.

[MetroShadow]

Just so that we're clear, there is a pilot that will begin later this spring with those with riding passes (and/or employees) and CC+ customers. Full rollout (with the kinks hopefully mitigated) to come at year's end.