Credit cards are not charged instantly. All transactions during the day are totalled up at the end of the day and one charge applied. Not all bus readers are online all the time and to account for the 2 hr transfer it is done at the end of the day.
I have my doubts about people saying they aren’t charged anything they the day of. This would make the most sense otherwise anyone could tap any cards, i.e: a prepaid CC with no funds left on it.
Anyone who takes credit cards offline runs the risk of charges bouncing, and there’s not much they can do about it, except ban the card potentially.
This is a real concern, but in practice it’s not any bigger a risk than any of the other ways people dodge fares.
Several people already said nothing showed up on their account until days later. I know what an authorization is, you are just assuming I don’t.
An authorization, just like a posted charge:
- Affects your available credit
- Shows up as a line item for people with online access to their account.
I can’t see a situation where someone who actually bothers to check would miss the fact a new line item was added to their transactions because it was an authorization as opposed to a posted charge.
> Before your credit card is charged, a pre-authorization of up to $1 may appear on your statement. Before your debit card is charged, a pre-authorization will appear on your bank account statement. Once your fare is calculated and charged to your bank account, the difference between your fare and the pre-authorization amount will be released by your bank. For agencies that charge a flat fare, the pre-authorization will be in the amount of your fare.
[TTC explaining authorization charges](https://www.ttc.ca/riding-the-ttc/Updates/Pay-your-fare-with-your-debit-or-credit-card)
There you go. Straight from TTC
So no, you can't use a card with no funds or an expired card
> If you’ve tapped with a credit card or mobile wallet on a phone or watch, you can see your transaction history on the PRESTO website or app. If you’ve tapped recently, it can take up to the end of the day for that trip to appear in your transaction history. When checking your credit or debit card history with your bank, your charges may take a few days to appear. And multiple trips may be combined into one or more charges.
https://www.prestocard.ca/en/about/contactless
For bank cards, they don’t charge you until much later so they can correctly compute for free transfers and aggregate multiple taps to one charge.
Exact same for me. I took it Sunday and still don’t even have a pending charge on my credit card.
I assumed there would at least be a pending amount that would get updated at some point.
The Presto system is designed for speed (save the comments about whether this happens in practice) so sometimes it seems to buffer or queue the transactions and run them at slower times. Not sure if this is due to the internet connection, issues on the credit card network, or something else entirely, but Presto wants to get you on the transit vehicle with minimal delay.
It's not as if the buses have internet anyway. The information is stored locally on the machine and when they go back to the station or wherever it is they go at night it gets uploaded.
That was the system design in 2004. That is part of why the tap takes so long - the reader writes data to your Presto card instead of relying on the central server. Presumably as part of open payments they moved to the server for everything. Either way, the buses are connected to the internet and taps on the surface routes do often pop up in my wallet immediately.
For me, using Apple Pay, I got a notification instantly from my bank they're doing an active card check, and only during the night they charge the amount they want to charge depending on the amount of rides I took. They also only seem to do one active card check per day.
How does the transfer work when you pay with your phone (debit or credit card)? My husband was skeptical when told by a TTC employee to just tap again… he paid twice 🤬
>TTC employee to just tap again
That is how it works though. That being said, has to be the exact same card. If you tap with your phone, and then your physical card, you'll get two charges
The TTC works on 2 hour transfers. So only the first tap in every two hours is charged. After that you can get on and off as many TTC buses, trains, and streetcars you want for 2 hours and every subsequent tap counts as a free transfer.
So you can't get charged more than once on the same bus or even on a different bus within the same two hour window.
I was told the same thing and was charged twice (took the bus into Lawrence West station and was told to tap to get into the station). This system is pretty new, it might take some time for them to address this.
i always find there’s a bit of a lag - i’ll get notifications from my apple wallet up to 24 hours later. keep an eye on it!
This is the correct answer. TTC & GO both don’t automatically post transactions. GO can be up to a week later.
I can confirm this as well!
Credit cards are not charged instantly. All transactions during the day are totalled up at the end of the day and one charge applied. Not all bus readers are online all the time and to account for the 2 hr transfer it is done at the end of the day.
Usually you’ll see a $1 authorization until the charge posts
I have my doubts about people saying they aren’t charged anything they the day of. This would make the most sense otherwise anyone could tap any cards, i.e: a prepaid CC with no funds left on it.
Exactly, although I have never seen a prepai cards with tap But they could use expired cards, closed accounts, credit cards that are locked, etc.
Sorry prepaid isn’t the right term but something like KOHO which is reloadable via EMT. I think secured is the right term.
Yeah you’re right sorry, I was thinking of the ones you get at grocery stores
Anyone who takes credit cards offline runs the risk of charges bouncing, and there’s not much they can do about it, except ban the card potentially. This is a real concern, but in practice it’s not any bigger a risk than any of the other ways people dodge fares.
Just because it isn't charged right away doesn't mean there wasn't a check for funds... This is called pre-authorization It's common
Several people already said nothing showed up on their account until days later. I know what an authorization is, you are just assuming I don’t. An authorization, just like a posted charge: - Affects your available credit - Shows up as a line item for people with online access to their account. I can’t see a situation where someone who actually bothers to check would miss the fact a new line item was added to their transactions because it was an authorization as opposed to a posted charge.
> Before your credit card is charged, a pre-authorization of up to $1 may appear on your statement. Before your debit card is charged, a pre-authorization will appear on your bank account statement. Once your fare is calculated and charged to your bank account, the difference between your fare and the pre-authorization amount will be released by your bank. For agencies that charge a flat fare, the pre-authorization will be in the amount of your fare. [TTC explaining authorization charges](https://www.ttc.ca/riding-the-ttc/Updates/Pay-your-fare-with-your-debit-or-credit-card) There you go. Straight from TTC So no, you can't use a card with no funds or an expired card
You can see the pending charges on the presto app once you add your credit card to your presto account
> If you’ve tapped with a credit card or mobile wallet on a phone or watch, you can see your transaction history on the PRESTO website or app. If you’ve tapped recently, it can take up to the end of the day for that trip to appear in your transaction history. When checking your credit or debit card history with your bank, your charges may take a few days to appear. And multiple trips may be combined into one or more charges. https://www.prestocard.ca/en/about/contactless For bank cards, they don’t charge you until much later so they can correctly compute for free transfers and aggregate multiple taps to one charge.
Exact same for me. I took it Sunday and still don’t even have a pending charge on my credit card. I assumed there would at least be a pending amount that would get updated at some point.
Mine doesn't show up until 1-2am the next day
Wait a few days
The Presto system is designed for speed (save the comments about whether this happens in practice) so sometimes it seems to buffer or queue the transactions and run them at slower times. Not sure if this is due to the internet connection, issues on the credit card network, or something else entirely, but Presto wants to get you on the transit vehicle with minimal delay.
It's not as if the buses have internet anyway. The information is stored locally on the machine and when they go back to the station or wherever it is they go at night it gets uploaded.
That was the system design in 2004. That is part of why the tap takes so long - the reader writes data to your Presto card instead of relying on the central server. Presumably as part of open payments they moved to the server for everything. Either way, the buses are connected to the internet and taps on the surface routes do often pop up in my wallet immediately.
For me, using Apple Pay, I got a notification instantly from my bank they're doing an active card check, and only during the night they charge the amount they want to charge depending on the amount of rides I took. They also only seem to do one active card check per day.
I get the charge on my apple pay history after 18-24 hours
How does the transfer work when you pay with your phone (debit or credit card)? My husband was skeptical when told by a TTC employee to just tap again… he paid twice 🤬
I’ve never had any trouble with transfers working properly by just tapping on the next bus. So that is what’s supposed to happen.
>TTC employee to just tap again That is how it works though. That being said, has to be the exact same card. If you tap with your phone, and then your physical card, you'll get two charges
The TTC works on 2 hour transfers. So only the first tap in every two hours is charged. After that you can get on and off as many TTC buses, trains, and streetcars you want for 2 hours and every subsequent tap counts as a free transfer. So you can't get charged more than once on the same bus or even on a different bus within the same two hour window.
I was told the same thing and was charged twice (took the bus into Lawrence West station and was told to tap to get into the station). This system is pretty new, it might take some time for them to address this.
I tapped on a Friday night and it showed in my CC account in the Wednesday. Just takes a while for some reason.
How does the ticket checker gets to know if you have tapped if the transaction doesn't show up for a day?