Riders Overcharged for CTA Fare Cards

By Margaret Lyons in News on Jul 30, 2008 6:33PM

If you’ve paid your CTA fares through an Express Farecard vending machine between March until the middle of July, you might want to double-check your credit card and bank statements.

For the past five months, Express Farecard machines across the city failed to perform debit and credit card payments completely…that is, until the transactions caught up with themselves Friday, and all the accumulated charges were taken out of cardholders’ bank accounts at once.

Metavante, the Milwaukee-based company that processes the electronic payments at CTA fare card vending machines, overcharged some 400 CTA customers $9000 collectively, and the CTA says another 35,000 people may have also felt consequences of the technological hiccup.

Metavante reversed all overcharges upon their discovery, and they’ve agreed to cover any overdrafts fees that may have resulted from the error. If you’re one of the unfortunately affected CTA riders, you can reach Metavante at (800) 371 – 2709 from 8 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday; make sure you’ve got bank documentation to back up any overdraft claims. [Trib, photo by What I'm Seeing Dot Com] —Ana Bolotin