Muni Diaries

Photo by Lydia Chow

Update: Clipper vigilante Akit points to a post on his site from June of this year describing more or less the exact situation that Danielle (below) found herself in. Danielle’s story came to us in late October, proof that Clipper’s response to this glitch has been lethargic at best.

Original post: Rider Danielle noticed a double charge on her Clipper card history when she transferred from Muni to BART and then back on Muni within the 90-minute time period.

It’s possible everyone’s been aware of this for ages, but I feel like a sucker for just noticing now: using Clipper on BART voids a Muni transfer.

I don’t use Muni quite often enough in a month to warrant buying a transit pass, so all that’s on my card is cash value. If I take a muni bus to BART, get off after a few stops and then transfer back on Muni, I’m charged for the second bus ride, even if I board within the 90 minutes of buying the original muni transfer.

We contacted SFMTA and found out that there is indeed a software glitch that caused the double charge. “Currently the Clipper system prioritizes the Muni to BART (within San Francisco) transfer discount ($.25) over the Muni 90-minute transfer,” SFMTA’s Kristen Holland told us. In other words, if you take Muni to BART within San Francisco like Danielle did, and get back on Muni within 90 minutes, you would lose your 90-minute transfer.

Holland said that the SFMTA is working with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (which operates Clipper) to resolve the software issue. Meanwhile, you can get a refund for the double charge.

“The Clipper Customer Service Bureau has the authorization to provide refunds when this happens. We expect Clipper to have a fix for this problem early next year,” Holland said.

Check the Clipper Customer Service information for how to get a reimbursement.

Rider Nathan D. received an email this morning from Clipper Card customer service that revealed the email address of more than 1,700 other customers. This was an error from a Clipper employee this morning, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission told the San Francisco Chronicle that they are making sure such mistakes don’t happen again. More from Nathan:

This morning I got an email from Clipper telling me that my credit card was about to expire. There’s nothing particularly unusual about this aside from the fact that this same email was sent to 1756 other Clipper customersby simply populating the CC field of the message header, effectively broadcasting a massive list of private addresses to a whole lot of people who have no business knowing them.

Nathan forwarded us the email, which we’ve attached above. The body of the email from Clipper Card customer service simply said:

Dear Clipper Cardholder,

We first would like to thank you for your support of the Clipper (formerly TransLink) program. According to our records, the credit card information we currently have on file for the Autoload on your Clipper Card is due to expire in December. To avoid any disruption of services, simply update your credit card / banking details online at www.clippercard.com by following these steps…

Well, good thing Nathan’s credit card number wasn’t in the email or anything. This certainly doesn’t help matters, knowing that some riders are already wary of potential privacy issues with Clipper cards. The MTC spokesperson said he is drafting an apology, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Did you receive the same email this morning? And how do you protect your email addresses on the internet?