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krisphead

This is a common London scam. Not only was that bus driver not a real driver (was a scammer), the bus wasn’t even a real bus (was a scam bus), and the inspector wasn’t even a real inspector (was an inscamtor). Furthermore, that wasn’t even Old Street, it was a dream.


yesthyes

All made of paper.


Active_Remove1617

And held together with steam.


Fair_Woodpecker_6088

Cobwebs and magic


nomiselrease

Thats a lump of cheese mate


AllOne_Word

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIezBv9Lb78


yesthyes

Wow I wasn’t aware of this what a coincidence 😇


kzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The taps!


Crisp_N_Dry

New Japanese trend.


Active_Remove1617

They say don’t tap when the machine doesn’t work, and if there is an issue with the bus which could mean it might not make the posted destination.


Dave8917

Exactly that there would be no other reason for a driver not to ask you to tap in and even if an inspector got on he would have been informed


Grayson81

According to a red faced man on Question Time, those Rwandans just get off the boat at Dover and immediately get paid to go on the Dole and become a bus.


jaylem

This isn't a real reply


krisphead

It’s a scam reply


londonspride

r/wooosh


zosolm

r/scamwooosh


davesy69

Actually Old Street has been a Chinese hologram since the government sold it in 2012.


Mrqueue

It’s actually the “London Silicon Valley roundabout” not old street


Brottolot

You see it all the time. Just the other day I got 3 steps into a side street before i realised it wasn't a street at all, it was 4 men disguised as a street. The things they get away with these days.


EngineKey

Within a dream


stonar89

Yeah but op won’t catch me now


Unlucky-Jello-5660

How do we know you're real ?


ArcTan_Pete

This makes no sense what do YOU think was the end goal of the driver? to get a load of people fined because they had not tapped in.?... I dont think that would have worked too well with everyone giving the exact same story 'the driver told me not to tap in' You were there when the inspector got on. Did a load of people have problems? Did you have problems with the inspector? I mean, if I was making a post about this situation on reddit, I would mention if I had been affected and how.... This sounds like BS


perfect_everything

No joke it sounds like BS but I've had this exact same situation happen to me at least twice. Not sure why a driver would wave us through and say don't tap. I think I assumed at the time that the payment machine was broken and that's why the driver did it.


[deleted]

Wouldn’t the driver have got in shit too for letting everyone on for free?..


JoeThrilling

not if the reader wasn't working.


wlondonmatt

Incorrect driver gets fined per person found without a ticket if the reader isn't working and it's not reported


Dyalikedagz

If it's not reported If it was reported, would the driver have been told to crack on?


SugarSweetStarrUK

Control might have told the driver to continue until they could get a replacement bus out. That would not only require a spare bus being ready to leave the garage but someone who's qualified to drive it being ready to do so. They'll often send a mechanic if the reporting driver has enough legal driving/shift time left, or a driver from the next shift if they don't. It's therefore likely that a driver has one hour left and that he's far from his garage, so they would either tell him to terminate early and drive "dead" back to base if it's not busy, or if it is busy they'll tell him to continue for now.


Inevitable-Cable9370

When the card reader is broke I’ve legit never had a bud driver tell people to get off . It’s always been a case of them finishing the route , then sorting ir out


wlondonmatt

It has to be reported to ibus(Which is tfl) the route controller is employed by the company. If the driver reported it to the route controller and told to drive the company would still get a fine. Whereas if it was reported to tfl the company would get a lesser fine It's a fine of £50 per passenger iirc.


f10101

Yes if it's not approved. It's taken very seriously. The inspectors are even sterner with the drivers than the passengers, from what I've seen. I wonder if, even when the machine isn't working, do the inspectors still feel that it's important to check the passengers, just to verify that the driver's not pulling a fast one to get the inspector off the bus by pretending the machine is broken.


cloud1445

Just because you can’t see the reason doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Maybe inspectors have quotas? Traffic wardens do so it’s not unlikely.


Medical-Issue-7993

Traffic wardens, to my knowledge as I am one, do not have quotas, we get filled in on our average tickets/pm, and how we're doing, but a common misconception is that we get paid a commission per ticket or we get paid extra if we do x amounts of tickets, we don't, our job is mainly to keep that town/city moving, so if you see us and you know you're parked wrongly, do both of us (yourself and us) a favour, drive a couple of streets away and try there, 9/10 if you leave that street we're going through, we won't end up bumping into you again. But no, we don't have quotas, and we don't get paid extra for exceeding x amount of tickets.


ArcTan_Pete

The whole post fails the sniff test - it whiffs of BS. I will admit, there was one fact I did not know before this post..... The Bus Driver/operating company will also get fined if Inspectors discover someone who has boarded without paying the fare - and the driver has not flagged them and, if you are wondering 'maybe the driver flagged \*all \* of the people he just let on for free.... that would not work because the driver would be asked WHY so many people were flagged


Sazilorian

I've had bus drivers wave me through without making me pay on a couple occasions - happened on a busy Friday night in central when the bus was super full. Maybe the driver just wanted to get on with it? Not sure


ArcTan_Pete

I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I am just saying that \*this account of it happening\* fails the sniff test - whiffs of BS


SorbetOk1165

Bus drivers themselves can be fined for knowingly allowing passengers on without paying so it seems more likely that the machine was broken


Bxsnia

how do they even find this out? it was so weird when i was a kid with a free oyster and i still wasnt allowed on the bus home from school when i forgot it.


SorbetOk1165

Who the inspectors? When they come to check your ticket. I used to be friends with a bus driver. Apparently the inspector asks the driver as soon as they get on the bus if the driver thinks there’s anyone on board without a valid ticket. If the driver answer yes they are then asked why they allowed it & who it is. This is why on occasions bus drivers refuse to move from the bus stop if someone gets on board & refuses to pay. Chances are they’ve just been fined for allowing fare dodgers.


[deleted]

This entire post is complete and utter BS. Driver waves people in for free. Inspector boards the bus for the first time in years. OP claims he told the inspector his phone was dead rather than blaming the driver, but neglects to mention what happened to everyone else. What kinda BS is this?


Neither-Stage-238

First time in years? I usually have an inspector check my card 3-5 times a year.


DanteBaker

It’s happened to me before years ago. The driver just told the inspector that no one had tapped in. There’s no conspiracy or scam here. What did you think happened? I mean if you saw the inspector started handing out fines to everyone then I can imagine you might think it was weird but that didn’t happen, did it?


TurbulentWeb1941

Ol' Blakey got on, kept goin "Hehhh! I 'av you Butler. Yehhh! you mark my words. Now get that bus out. Hehh"


TrippleFrack

^^^ This is the post Big Transport doesn’t want you to read!


Big-Finding2976

It's the post I didn't want me to read!


krisssy

Seems odd, but there's no way to know, particularly for people who weren't there. What was the outcome? Did you receive a fine? Will you make a complaint?


ViralRedditStar

The inspector came over and I said my phone run out of battery (which was true) and then left me alone... All very bizarre.


mjl1990uk

What’s bizarre is that instead of mentioning that the bus driver waved you on, you mentioned your irrelevant phone


[deleted]

It's not irrelevant, the inspector verifies you've tapped in by checking your contactless. It's still bizarre though


mjl1990uk

It’s irrelevant because they didn’t tap in so it made no difference whether or not their phone had died


[deleted]

The difference it makes is that the inspector couldn't prove they hadn't tapped in if their phone was 'dead', that's why they came up with that excuse Still baffling to me that they didn't explain what happened or that neither they nor any other passenger thought to mention it to the inspector


ChallengeFirm8189

What happened with the other people on the bus?


berrycrunch92

But that doesn't stop you from tapping on or from people checking your ticket? Edit: apparently only with some phones


DKUN_of_WFST

You can still tap in with Apple Pay if your phone is dead


Swiss_James

What? Really?! How does it check for my PIN or face?


[deleted]

I reckon you'd have to have express pass set up?


drs_12345

Yes, yes you do


flintchipz

only to a certain level of dead though


BongoStraw

Weird coincidence, and I don’t see how any sort of scam would be taking place, but the exact same thing happened to me last year on a bus. Only time I’ve ever been checked too.


novelty-socks

What happened with the inspector? Did they demand everyone pay up? Or did they talk to the driver and let folks off because the Oyster reader wasn't working? Pretty common for drivers to wave people on if there's a fault.


mescotkat

Did the ticket inspector scan your card? Or did the driver explain to them that the card reader wasn’t working… lots of holes in this story.


BetamaxTheory

I’m wondering if it had been noticed that when this particular bus driver was running late, the number of passengers tapping in was massively under what was expected. So this was a check on the bus driver. They waited until his bus was running late and then had an inspector board.


dreamsintostreams

It's not a fucking scam the machine was clearly broken lmao


concretebeagle

I hate you Butler. One for the teenagers there.


Auto_Pie

I've been waved on by the driver when the Oyster machine wasn't working so it could be that


[deleted]

[удалено]


dontwantthisdrama

So bizarre 🧐


Novel_Individual_143

It was immersive theatre OP had forgotten he’d bought tickets for but by happenstance was in the area and boarded bus he should’ve got on had he remembered. What are the chances?


BetamaxTheory

I’m wondering if it had been noticed that when this particular bus driver was running late, the number of passengers tapping in was massively under what was expected. So this was a check on the bus driver. They waited until his bus was running late and then had an inspector board.


KKfireheart

Surely the machine was broke and he had phoned ahead to notify about being unable to take payment and organise for an inspector/staffer to board with a payment machine in working order.. or is the world just to simple for my brain yikes


supersonic-bionic

Many bus drivers have done the same when the card reader is not working So it was just a coincidence. What happened when the inspector camw to you?


Popcorn_only_37

It means the censor was broken


AlannaTheLioness1983

I’m not sure if the scanner would even be able to tell if you’d tapped onto that particular bus? I thought it checked to see whether your card was valid, so people don’t carry around invalid cards and get free rides.


londonspride

Of course they can check. They have the drivers machine and route details as they get on.


AdComfortable9000

What was the bus number? Around what time..?


Genoxide855

Can't believe people get the bus.


WiggaGiga

Why


Genoxide855

It's a joke.


WiggaGiga

Ngl the tube is kinda better


Altruistic-Sun-1452

I have been asked by inspectors before on the bus how I paid and I just tell them with my card and they don’t bother me


Radiant-Big4976

they can check debit card now


[deleted]

[удалено]


hugoise

r/lostredditors


krisssy

No idea what you're quoting, but yes, they have been able to inspect your fare from a debit/credit card for many years now. At least 5.


Idea-Aggressive

Looked like a bug, removed. But yeah at least 5


Existential_Fatalist

Scam overboard!