A London cyclist has spoken out about his ordeal after thieves snatched the paper showing his bike hire code and then racked up a £400 bill over the weekend of February 17.
The rider, Jeremy, told the BBC he tried to hire a bike in central London when two teenage boys approached him, distracting him before snatching the receipt with his hire code. The youths ran away, hired a bike which was not returned all weekend and saw Jeremy charged £1.65 every 30 minutes, plus non-return charges for failing to return the bicycle within 24 hours.
"I felt foolish, I'd been caught out and I'm usually alert to this sort of thing," he said before explaining he reported the theft within 15 minutes to Transport for London but was told his report would only be accepted if he called Action Fraud. As it was a Friday night the call centre was closed for the weekend until Monday morning.
"I've had to stop thinking about it because otherwise it would have driven me crazy," he continued, confirming his bank, TfL and Action Fraud are trying to resolve the matter.
"I feel the crime was TfL's. You know you're continuing to take my money. When someone reports immediately a scam, they should stop payments," Jeremy said.
Transport for London's head of cycle hire David Eddington apologised for any distress caused and insisted they would be refunding him in full, stressing such cases are "extremely rare".