The Answer (2 in 1) Dear PRESTO Customer (and a video of a GO Train)

Dear Customer,
Thank you for your enquiry.
The online PRESTO card activity is updated regularly as the transactions become available from the devices. This will typically take up to 24 hours from the time of your travels.

The “Last Updated” feature on the dashboard will display the date 24 hours from the last time your PRESTO card was used. For example, if you last travelled on May 22nd 2017, your “Last Updated” date should be May 23rd 2017.
I apologize for any confusion this situation may have caused.
Sincerely,
Ashley
The PRESTO Team

This is the response to my question about updating transactions so I could see if our missing card was in fact stolen/being used. Something seems to be missing in this approach. Like many things with Presto, I guess it makes sense after the explanation, but it's not intuitive up front.

And I guess the confusion about the email transaction was resolved when they emailed me back.

It's hot, I'm sitting in shorts listening to Black Mountain, maybe you can help me to understand why their answer bugs me. (It might be that I'm a dumb jerk, so don't hold back)

Here's a GO train passing by on its way into Hamilton downtown.
I love transit despite my grumblings here.

Balancing Act

The number 39.33 keeps appearing on my PRESTO card balance as if it has meaning. It's not quite 42, which you may know as The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything.

It keeps telling me everywhere I look that there is $39.33 on the card. But there's not. No. 

The problem started when PRESTO cancelled my contract when my new credit card expiry date changed. That triggers a chain of events that render simple solutions like updating the expiry date useless. Nope, with the uniquely PRESTO problem you need to set up a new contract (which carries over the amount remaining on your cancelled contract. I know, right?)

So once I updated the autoload contract I might have been satisfied and gone back to my life pondering the meaning of love and attachment, watching replays of hockey fights on my computer, sneezing, etc. But that would have been a mistake! Why? 

Well, the balance is not actually $39.33, despite telling me that it is on every page of my PRESTO account online, but is in fact $39.33 minus $20.00 that PRESTO added on my expired credit card, then took off the next time the PRESTO card was used, but I would only know that if I dug past the initial pages on my PRESTO web site account, where it shows I have $39.33, to the transaction history page (image above) where I would be required to decipher the entries to reveal the truth, that I only have $19.33 on the card (why wouldn't they bother to update my account online so I can see this information easily, instead of showing the balance with the $20, which they have as $39.33? "It's something they are working on" I'm told by the PRESTO person on the phone) - you following? 

Well, since $19.33 is less than the minimum amount of $20 you are allowed to have on your card, the autoload amount you just entered, even if you had a million dollars, would not work until the balance is brought up over $20... 

So one more step: go to another page at PRESTO and add money to the card above and beyond the autoload contract info you've already transacted to get the extra 0.67 cents on so the autoload will actually work. And just to note, my current balance is still not $39.33, despite the messages at each step of the way on the PRESTO site.

What, what, WHAT?

Transaction History. Designed to be unintelligible? I think so.

 Let's drill in here: March 1, 7:36am (bottom of chart).

Autoload (e-Purse Load Value) $20, $20, $20.  Why would the autoload load $20 three times? Yet the next column doesn't show that much added. What to do?

Call PRESTO! The very nice woman I spoke with was at first as confused as I (who wouldn't be, I suppose) - until she surmised that only one of the transactions went through ($20).

I haven't got time to write too much about this other than the ask the eternal question: WHY????

Why do transactions that didn't work show up in the transaction history at all? And if they do, shouldn't it indicate that it was a failed transaction (and I don't even know why it would have failed the first two times)

And here I thought I might run out of material for the blog...