Fare payments double-deducted in Volgograd

Residents of Volgograd continue to report issues with contactless fare payment. In addition to malfunctioning validators, passengers have encountered situations where money is deducted twice from their cards for a single trip.

City resident Evgeny noticed excessively frequent notifications about deductions: «I usually ride public transport twice a day, but the SMS messages come much more often. For example, today at 7:55 I paid for a trip from the railway station to the Central Park of Culture and Leisure. At 8:10, a deduction notification arrives. And at 8:20, it arrives again. I couldn»t have paid again on the trolleybus at 8:20 — I was already at my workplace!«

The organization «Volna,» responsible for the operation of payment systems in transport, suggested that the cause might be interruptions in mobile internet: «Mobile internet in the city is not available everywhere; often, transport passes through areas without internet — this disrupts the work of validators. Most likely, in this case, some kind of failure occurred as well.»

To get a refund for erroneously deducted funds, passengers need to contact the organization:

• Write an email to the email address of «Volna» listed on the website.
• Describe the situation in free form and provide the last digits of the bank card.
• Attach screenshots of the transactions and leave a contact phone number for communication.

According to the operator, after verifying the fact of double deduction, the money should be returned.

Simultaneously with this problem, other city residents cannot pay for fares with cards at all. Validators on trams do not respond to touches or freeze. One of the passengers on tram number 2 noted: «I tried to pay on all validators — they just didn»t respond. Many, after being rejected a couple of times, decided simply not to pay for the ride.«