New OVpay system works even if contactless payment is off (and people are losing money)

There have been several complaints from Dutch train and public transport passengers that they have been charged more than their actual travel cost.

The transition to the new OVpay system has not gone smoothly for some passengers. Since the end of January, you don’t need your beloved OV Chipkaart to check in and out while travelling in the Netherlands.

Double check-ins

While many people were excited to check in with nothing but a debit card, other passengers had some difficulties. Several people reported that they had been charged double for their commuting, reports NU.nl.

According to Gerbrant Corbee, spokesperson for Translink (the company in charge of the OV Chipkaart), the most common issue is when people have more than one card in their digital or physical wallets.

READ MORE: 7 ways you can level up your Dutch life with a personal OV chip card

“As a result, people with the OV-chipkaart may check-in and accidentally check out with a debit card.” — said their spokesperson to NU.nl.

The funny part in these cases is that passengers have checked in twice, with zero check-outs in the system.

The NS can see us!

The new OVpay system is able to recognize debit cards, even if the contactless payment is off.

person-paying-for-public-transport-with-phone
The goal would be that you can check in like this. Image: Depositphotos

“If people pay with the transit chip card while it’s in their phone’s case, it could happen that the phone is scanned instead of the transit chip card.” — said the spokesperson of NS to NU.nl.

You can ask for a refund

For now, Corbee of Translink advises passengers to only offer one payment pass to ensure that “people with the same pass they checked in with have to check out.”

If things go wrong with your payment with NS, you can still check out via OVpay’s website or app. 

But if you notice that you’ve been charged the equivalent of a whole road trip in the flatlands of tulips while commuting to your office, you can ask for a refund.

What do you think of the new OVpay system? Tell us in the comments!

Feature Image:Depositphotos
Mihály Droppa
Mihály Droppa
Mihály fell in love with (and in) Amsterdam, so he quit his NGO job in Budapest and moved to Amsterdam to become a journalist. His apartment is full of plants and books, two dogs, and a random mouse in the kitchen. You might find him in Vondelpark, where he spends most of his life throwing tennis balls for his vizslas and listening to podcasts. His nickname is Mex — ask him why!

5 COMMENTS

  1. Hoi, ik wil alleen weten hoe kan de conducteur kontroleren of je met je bankpas betaald hebt omdat de kosten pas achteraf in rekening worden gebracht. Hoe doet hij dat? Je bankpas scannen? Weet iemand dit? Dankje

  2. Je bankpas heeft een uniek nummer voor contactloos betalen. Deze wordt bij inchecken gescand. Dit unieke nummer is dankzij internet te zien door de conducteur.

  3. Er zit een id op je bankpas en dit wordt doorgestuurd door de gate of validator naar het systeem en database. Tijdens de controle van de conducteur stuurt zijn apparat dezelde id en controleert dezelfde database of zon kaartje een geldige check in is geweest. Dan de conducteur weet of je met je bankpas ingechekt bent.

  4. To be honest was better before just with ovcard, the machine to check in and out are to slow and need to wait a few seconds to proceed, you can think easy that you did check in but instead your not for example in a bus, it happened to me a few times. If they make them more fast better. I will never use my debit for transport, i consider it not safe and in future can be hacked easly by criminals, they will find new metods. My pure opinion!

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