Boris bike users wrongly charged £3,000 in a week

Hundreds of Boris bike customers were wrongly charged after a computer failure, it emerged today.

Nearly 600 people had money withdrawn from their bank accounts last week for journeys they had not taken. Although most were overcharged by less than £10, one customer had £300 taken and 24 others lost more than £50.

Serco, which runs the cycle hire scheme, admitted it had overcharged a total of £3,182. The company refunded this money and was also forced to pay more than £6,000 in compensation to some bike users as a "goodwill gesture".

Leon Daniels, from Transport for London, said: "Serco are contracted by TfL to run an efficient and reliable system and such performance is completely unacceptable.

"We have demanded, and have been assured, that our customers will face no repeat of this issue and that Serco's performance will improve. Overall, Barclays Cycle Hire continues to be a great success."

A spokesman for Serco said that up to 577 cycle hire customers were overcharged due to "an error encountered by the billing and payment system which we operate".

He added: "We apologise to TfL and are sorry for the inconvenience."

In February it was revealed that more than 2,500 users were accidentally billed a total of £23,895 in the cycle scheme's first five months.

More than four million bike trips have been made since the £140 million scheme was launched last July. Nearly 119,000 people have become members - paying up to £48 a year for a key fob that releases a bike.