Bear with me on this as I provide background info: On our last morning in Rome a few days ago, the 'bus police' boarded our bus after we got to Termini station to check passenger ticket validations. When we had boarded the bus near vatican city my son had paid with his credit card, and I had paid with Google wallet (with my phone) as we often had during our travels. When the officer demanded to see my ticket and/or proof of payment, I told her how I had paid. She held her phone by mine to verify, but that didn't work (on their end). I explained to her that every time I had purchased a ticket during the last 2 weeks, there was always a delay in the charge showing up, even as a 'pending' charge. She didn't budge. My son asked if I could provide proof of purchase once we had wifi and she said yes, then after taking my passport info proceeded to issue me a ticket for €54.90. The ticket purchase did show up on my CC statement, however the date shown is 2 days after the bus ride (the day after we returned to the U.S.). I called my CC company and they confirmed what I feared, there are no time stamps on purchases, only dates.
My question is, has anyone experienced this? Even if I show 'proof of purchase', with the date not matching with the date of my bus ride, I'm doubtful they would accept that. And, I have a 5 day window to pay €54.90; after that it's €104.90 for 6 to 60 days after said 'violation' The catch? It can take up to 120 days for a response. Any advice? I'm frustrated knowing I paid yet facing this seemingly inevitable need to pay for something I didn't do.
My 5 day window ends tomorrow (Nov 21).
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
15282 posts
If you haven’t yet paid and you are back in the US why do you worry?
Send them proof that your card paid for the ticket and leave it at that.
If they have a problem with that do you think ATAC is going to send an employee to collect to the US? They can’t even get many Italians to pay those fines let alone the foreigners.
Posted by
Boston
1713 posts
.....and passport control won't check for unpaid bus or traffic fines.
Posted by
Los Angeles
751 posts
Would you mind sharing which credit card/ bank you had in your Google wallet?
I was just in Rome and had e-mail alerts set up on both my Capital One and Amex cards. From what I see looking back, some of the notifications came through in almost real time, while others, such as those for ATAC, lagged by several hours. Bot nothing like 2 days.
Was your son's card from the same bank? I can see a potential issue with the ATAC system if a unique ID is generated for each transaction made on your phone, but ATAC should be accounting for that. And obviously you received the green OK screen after you tapped your phone - so there should be a corresponding transaction in their system.. Might be worth a letter to ATAC, with documentation, putting them on notice that their verification system is imperfect.
Posted by
Los Angeles
751 posts
...and of course the other thing you could do would be to contest the charge with your CC company - if you received a ticket for non-payment, then the charge is illegitimate. That could force ATAC to deal with it...
Posted by
OP
Richland, WA, USA
2 posts
@markcw Thanks for your input and ideas. My card is a Bank of America Visa, my son's is Cap One. I noticed a lag time early on in our trip but didn't think much of it at the time. It varies from 1-2 days. My son said the ATAC charge posted to his cc on Nov 18 as well (from our Nov 16 bus ride). To clarify one point, when I mentioned "The ticket purchase did show up on my CC statement..." I was referring to the ATAC bus ticket charge of $1.64. Thanks again!
Posted by
Seattle
50 posts
My wife and I were checked by the ATAC fare enforcement on a bus our last day in Rome. We had paid one fare by credit card, the other with Google wallet on a phone. The officers came on board about 5 minutes after we had boarded and paid.
In each case, the officer was able to verify our payments on the spot by running the phone or card against their handheld machine. I presume the machine they used to verify didn't contact my credit card company directly, but instead hit the ATAC fare database, looking for proof of our payment registered there. If so, then it doesn't matter whether the credit card company had registered the payment then or 2 days later -- if the bus fare machine approved it when you paid, this should have been immediately sent to the ATAC database for verification access on their end. I'd suspect a screwup there.
That said, if you have the payment on record with your credit card company, then you should be able to dispute the charge, though that seems like tricky business from afar. Maybe your credit card company can handle it for you?
(And FWIW, my CapitalOne Google wallet charge also showed up in my credit card record as being paid 2 days after the actual bus trip.)
Posted by
Los Angeles
751 posts
Megan - I finally had time to look at my Capital One account online - for my ATAC transactions, both the purchase date and the posted date are shown. Since you can document the purchase on the date in question, that should be enough to dispute the claim with ATAC - I assume they give you contact information for doing so. If you had multiple ATAC transactions over a short period of time, it might be helpful to document those beyond the one in question.
Posted by
Magyarország / Rep of Texas
18175 posts
When you pay, no electronic receipt is generated? Just curious. You have no evidence of payment? That's not a good system.
Posted by
Oxford, United Kingdom
5339 posts
You can get details of charges made by registering with "Tap & Go - MyAtac", although whether this works retrospectively I am not sure.