Dear NJ Transit, your employee sucks.

This happened to me on NJ Transit this morning. So I wrote an email to their complaints department. Anything in italics is what I wanted to say, but could not because there was a word limit/my thought are totally un PC.

Dear NJ Transit,
Today something happened which amazed me as much as pissed me off. On the 8:41am train from Summit to Penn Station (express - i love that it only makes 2 stops) your conductor took my money! I've traveled enough on this line to know how it works, I want to make it clear I'm not some confused old Jewish woman who always thinks she's getting ripped off. I promise, this really happened:

I had a normal ticket (non-rush hour) I bought from the kiosk in a "round trip," pack for $13. I knew this was a rush hour train that costs $7.50 . Seeing that my ticket cost $6.50 one-way, I knew I'd need to top it off with an extra $1. I thought there may be some charge so I put my $6.50 ticket and $3.00 in cash in the little metal slide thing next to the aisle for the conductor.

The man sitting next to me had to buy his ticket on the train (he was actually a fellow high school alum, graduated 1 yr before me). The conductor gave him a receipt and walked off. I politely called after him, "Excuse me! Excuse me!", but he didn't turn around. Funny he didn't hear me because half of the sitting passengers turned and it made me look like a raving lunatic.

So after our Broad Street, Newark stop he strolled through the aisle and I politely asked him for my change. He looked at me kind of confused and said "I don't have your $3. Are you saying I took your $3? When I walked through there was only this (referring to that long white strip with brown print and #'s on it), and that guy bought a ticket." I told him I had $3 with my ticket there and then the 2 men sitting in my row both backed me up saying they saw the $3 too, actually only my high school gang member did - but 2 sounds better than 1. He just shrugged and I decided it wasn't worth fighting about. And well, perhaps we had a slight debate - it may have involved me responding to his "do you think I took your $3" with a "Yes, I know you did."

I don't know his name, but this conductor is always in the very 1st car on the 8:41am Summit train to Penn Station. He's average height, good looking, a little shaved beard thing stubbeling about his sideburns/chin that makes him look like a goat going through puberty. As I said earlier, I'm as much in shock that this guy did this to me (because he's an official employee) as I am pissed off at him.

I just wanted you to be aware of the incident.

Have a nice day.

Now the debate is...do I buy another normal ticket ($6.50) tomorrow, and when he dares to ask for me to step it up to $7.50 I refuse? Or do I just buy an express ticket before hand?