Flamingo Fares Reviews

Last used FlamingoFares march 2023. It’s now October 2023 and apparently there is an update five months ago. I had to re login (for some reason aka phone reset etc) and now it forces a new virtual card created. I can see the old virtual card with $7.80 under “manage” along with the new virtual card with $0.00 under “manage” but can only “use” the new virtual card. There is no way to switch which virtual card to use. In the past, I had to have two separate devices and two separate accounts aka emails and phone numbers with separate virtual cards and separate balances if two riders in a family were making a trip. I’m going to give up on FlamingoFares and see if I can get balances transferred to physical cards. Also I had to regularly delete my credit card information from FlamingoFares to prevent being charged for unwanted reloads that were caused by pocket taps during use resulting in excessive bank fees. Just doesn’t work right. No meaningful beta testing and Psta et al forcing flamingo fares to be used exclusively for ridership. Just a forced disaster from people who hate public transport and especially those that use it.

I bought a 3 day virtual ticket and the scan only worked one time on the bus. Not only that FlamingoFares charged me an additional $20 I did not request. Trying to contact Flamingo has been a chore either phone number didn’t answer and e-mail didn’t go through. I abruptly cancelled FlamingoFares !😡Also they claimed that you had 14 days money back guarantee. I tried to get my money back after 2 days of FlamingoFares non functioning but did not get a response by email or phone.

Leftover money in my card disappeared after deleting FlamingoFares and reinstalling/login back in. Last year a similar thing happened when it basically ate a friend’s money and created an unusable virtual card. They basically do not have customer service and the FAQ website they send everyone too offers 0 solutions to these very real problems!

i got a new phone and FlamingoFares forced me to create a new virtual card. i did so and then FlamingoFares would not access the original card with money loaded on.
i tried reporting the card stolen-no joy.
then i got so frustrated that i called HART and finally spoke to a live human being. i explained what happened and they confirmed it was a virtual card. they put me on hold and then in touch with a nice person who very quickly moved the balance to the new card.
the one star is NOT for the HART customer service because they were lovely. the one star is for the developers and the goons who hired other goons to create an app that steals money from poor people.
FlamingoFares itself is utter garbage and i stand by that assessment. this is clearly an every day problem, as even folks who use public transportation change phones. it’s absurd that FlamingoFares would ask you to create a new virtual card for an existing account and even more absurd that FlamingoFares then won’t access that card to scan.
the developers (read: HART/PTSA IT department) need to fix this as i see year old reviews citing this issue. furthermore this needs to be included in the FAQ as, again, it’s an every day problem.

if this has happened to you, call the bus company (HART/PTSA/etc) directly and tell customer service that you need the flamingo rep to fix the issue. it took the person less than a minute to solve a problem that had me worked up for hours.

I have been trying to get the pass to load up on my phone while paying on the bus. It would take a good 5 to 10 minutes to load up on FlamingoFares . Thank God the Drivers would allow me to ride while we both waited on Flamingo App to finally load my 31 day bus card. I bought a new phone thinking it was probably my service and now I can’t transfer the pass to my new phone. It is very frustrating because I ordered a 31 day bus pass (a few days ago) and can only use it on my old phone with hopes it eventually displays my pass to scan. My suggestion is All passes should be linked to customers email or phones wallet and not only on one device. (Devices are subject to change/upgrade, get loss or stolen.) I contacted customer support and they told me there was nothing they could do. Totally disappointed in this new payment system.

I bought a discounted fare card for seniors. I added it to my app and it shows up but it’s not made available to use from my phone, I still must physically carry and tap the original card. I can’t figure out how to convert my physical card to a virtual card like in the DC Metro SmarTrip app. The Flamingo app only let me create one regular adult virtual fare card for use and it won’t let me delete that virtual card either. Overall FlamingoFares leaves a lot to be desired.

FlamingoFares worked for 2 months then it started auto reversing my debit card loads ; I checked with the bank & that is what I was told. Flamingo assured me the bank was blocking charge but after talking w/ my bank I was told it was them auto reversing the charge.
Totally absurd & then when I tried to reset FlamingoFares it tells me my flamingo card can’t access transit account. So my discount card is unable to be listed to my account. It tells me my device (iPhone doesn’t have a card associated with app). If I create a card then it won’t feature my discount. And still waiting for a follow up return call.

Bytemark doesn’t update FlamingoFares regularly and has not updated since iOS 15 was released. The hardware onboard buses is inconsistent and was recently down- they updated the on board software but not the smartphone app. QR scanner on screen barely works and half the time the rider can’t pay using Flamingo Fares at all. FlamingoFares Store claims it works with Apple Wallet but there is no option to add it in the Apple Wallet app and it is not listed amongst the Apple Wallet transit options.

Very long and complicated account setup form. Why do you need me to make a pin, password, tell you my birthday, and tell you my address? I’m just trying to ride the bus.

FlamingoFares Store lists this as “Works with Wallet” but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to add my pass to Apple wallet. It does not support Express Transit.

FlamingoFares layout won’t win any design awards. Big opportunity missed not having a cute flamingo mascot.

The payment method form worries me. FlamingoFares does not support Apple Pay which means your credit card info will get lost if / when FlamingoFares is breached. I advise anyone using this to generate a virtual / 1 time card number.

I wish we could avoid FlamingoFares entirely and purchase a pass directly through the Apple Wallet app like you can with SO many other transit systems. (Although I know calling the Tampa region a “transit system” is a stretch)

I always have a problem with FlamingoFares. It never brings up the past with money on it so I have to keep making a virtual as instructed and then it never brings up the pass you're paying money on so then you have to call continuously trying to get a hold of a person, so you can actually get to where you need to go after having already paid to do so. I couldn't tell you how many times I've been forced to walk or to be late because of this and I am sick of it.

While it has many features, the main one (pretty much the only one I need) is purchasing cards… I am way too busy to be going to specific & out of the way locations to purchase monthly cards… You can load virtual cards, but they are non-transferable to other virtual cards… If I load a virtual card on my device, I can’t transfer $ to my son’s card.

FlamingoFares is great for the most part! It’s made transportation to and from work a lot easier for me. The main issue I have with is the virtual card feature. I changed my phone recently and that’s when all my problems with FlamingoFares started. First it asked me to create a new virtual card since I didn’t have one associated with my new device.(which I think is weird because my card should be associated with my account itself to avoid this very issue but anyway) I went ahead and created a new one. Just for my old virtual card to pop back up. But for some reason I’m unable to use it because it does not pop up in the “use” section. I called customer service three times. They had asked me to leave a message which I did. Days later I opened my app to see my original virtual card, with all my money, blocked and all the money had moved onto the new card. This would have been great except; FlamingoFares was freezing so I logged out and logged back in and and it asked to create yet another virtual card! Yikes! Which I did but now I’m still not able to access the card with my money on it. As a broke college student, this makes things unnecessarily hard for me.

I guess all I’m trying to say is, I’m hoping the developers will come up with a “delete virtual card feature” so I can delete the other cards and get my original card back. Or at least that I’d be able to use the card with my money on it.
Aside that, it’s a pretty great app.

Thanks!

I really enjoy using FlamingoFares . It’s very convenient to not have to carry around extra cards in my wallet or cash on hand. However, there’s no way to edit payment information or to update card info. This is my complaint, payment cards have an expiration date and there’s no option to update it. Because of this issue I cannot use FlamingoFares until it’s fixed.

The qr hasn’t scanned in over a month on the bus. Don’t get me wrong, I’m lucky the bus drivers are nice enough to let us ride free when the “tap again” error keeps showing up but still, cmon now!

FlamingoFares. Helps a lot when it comes to organizing bus passes & making sure I had the $ needed for my rides. Also makes it quick getting on the bus.

After constantly getting the tap again screen I tried to download FlamingoFares again and now I can’t even get the virtual card that has 20 dollars on it to load or attach.

I really like the fact you can scan the barcode, after loading money onto your card.

Love the system been using them for over 15 years Reliable and Helps me save money when needed. Also the Drives are Amazing at there Job Kind and Helpful. Thankful for there Hardworking Services.

I keep trying to save my credit cards and it just says “error please verify details and try again.” I’ve tried multiple cards and verified the info multiple times. Definitely an app issue rendering it useless until it’s fixed.

Edit: even tho FlamingoFares wouldn’t store any credit cards, I was able to add funds and use it while visiting Tampa.

Keep getting a null 400 error . Unable to login or do anything!