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Last week around 570 Barclays Cycle Hire users were charged for journeys they hadn’t taken, reports the Evening Standard.
While most of those affected were overcharged by less than £10, one had as much as £300 taken from their account, while 24 others were overcharged by more than £50.
In total over £3,000 was incorrectly taken from the accounts of Barclays Cycle Hire users. Operator Serco has now refunded the money and paid compensation – over £6,000 – to those affected.
A Serco spokesperson said the blunder occurred because of "an error encountered by the billing and payment system which we operate".
"We apologise to TfL and are sorry for the inconvenience."
Transport for London’s Leon Daniels commented: "Serco are contracted by TfL to run an efficient and reliable system and such performance is completely unacceptable.
“We have demanded, and have been assured, that our customers will face no repeat of this issue and that Serco’s performance will improve. Overall, Barclays Cycle Hire continues to be a great success."
Earlier this year it was revealed Serco had overcharged two and a half thousand users a total of £23,895 in the first five months of operation of the scheme.
Serco has previously come under fire for being ‘overwhelmed’ in the first months of the scheme. However the overall popularity of London’s Cycle Hire, introduced last summer, has boomed. By February 2.5 milllion journeys had been made on the ‘Boris bikes’ over 10,000,000 km – the equivalent of cycling to the moon and back 13 times. The scheme is set to be expanded over a large area of East London in time for the Olympics.
