Dubai Debt Issues Push Stocks Down
Family Gets Early Christmas Gift From Ellen DeGeneres
Stuy Pyro Leaves Notes In Hieroglyphics
Photos of D Train Murder Depict Bloody Panic
Have Fancy Dress & Thirst For Spotlight, Will Crash State Dinner
More details have emerged in that “magic MetroCard machine” story the Post broke yesterday. Turns out it that it wasn’t a MetroCard machine, but a LIRR ticket machine (which also dispenses MetroCards). And make that machines; the Times reports that from 2004 until last May, countless people have unwittingly used the machines to get free tickets and MetroCards, exploiting a software glitch that let riders with insufficient funds on their debit card or credit card obtain the tickets for free.
A Metro-North spokeswoman tells the Times that aside from the three suspects (who allegedly netted $800,000 by selling cut-rate LIRR tickets and MetroCards) almost a thousand people unknowingly scored free tickets to the tune of $74,000. The software problem was corrected after the arrests, and now the LIRR will seek restitution from the grifters and try to force the vending machine provider, Scheidt & Bachmann, to pay for some of the railroad’s losses.
After several years of freebies, the problem was only discovered in May during a software test. As technicians looked into the problem, they noticed suspicious transactions from two debit cards issued by First Republic Bank. According to the Times, by the fall of 2006 the cards were being used to “buy” more than $10,000 in tickets and MetroCards a month. Earlier this year, the “purchases” totaled $67,000. The three Long Islanders arrested recently are charged with fraud; they’re pleading not guilty.
Photo courtesy HelveticaFanatic.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Topic tangent:
LIRR and Metro-North should just use the Subway/Bus fare system, possibly with free transfers to the bus and subway.
Transit agencies are like little fiefdoms. They don't want to give up control over anything, especially ticketing/revenue.
Greed will always get you arrested.
So the MTA, (Metro North and LIRR) supposedly noticed some discrepencies with how many tickets they sold vs. how much money they took in but just figured it was delays in credits from the bank.
So someone buying up to $17,600 worth of tickets in two days and the weekly audit did not notice this discrepency. Hmm.
So does this mean there were weeks when they received more money than tickets sold where this difference was made up?
More high marks for MTA employees not noticing that money that is not theirs to waste is being wasted.
The MTA is just a big black hole of money disappearing into the dirty train tunnels.