Just a laugh.

[ploddingon]

I usually travel by train to church on Sunday mornings. As I am now quite elderly I have tended to buy my tickets, at the ticket office when it is quiet, a day or two before travelling. It does me no good waiting in queues or having to use ticket machines in a panic, if it turns out that the ticket office is shut for some reason.

On one recent Sunday I was bit a poorly and decided I best not travel. I went to the ticket office first thing Sunday morning and asked for a refund. The chap there knows me and my routine, but he said he would have to charge me £10 for the refund and my tickets only cost £7.20. Getting my refund would actually cost me £2.80. I then phoned Southern Rail, but they would have none of it either.

I ended up complaining in writing. I said that if they didn't give me my money back, then I would complain to the regulator on grounds of age discrimination. I got a reply back today saying they would refund me, which I have copied and pasted below, but I still thought all of their extra self-justification was a load of rubbish. I am quite sure they could make their system far more conducive to processing refunds at a ticket office, than they claim it currently is. If they wanted to of course. Sigh...

P.S. Is it just me, or does it all sound eerily similar to a letter from a bank justifying their charges? Crikey, it is now after 1a.m.. I spend far too much of my time dealing with such stupid companies and I am off to bed.


Dear Mr Ploddingon,
Thank you for taking the time to contact us. I am sorry to hear that you were unable to travel on Sunday the 28th of January due to poor health, and that you feel our administration charge of £10.00 is too high. I hope that it may help if I explain why this charge is made.

The National Conditions of Travel allow Train Operating Companies to charge a reasonable fee to help cover the costs involved in processing refunds. Although it may sound relatively simple this is actually a complex procedure and requires a significant amount of manpower and paperwork. Each refund form must be checked thoroughly before we work out how much refund is due. This information is then recorded on our database and is double-checked and authorised. We then pass this request to our central accounts team who actually process the refund. If the refund is by cheque, it must be written out and entered on our Accounts Payable Ledgers; for credit card refunds the card details, amount and codes are processed manually in our accounts office.

We also have to account for the refunds to each train operating company whose services were covered by the original ticket. If we didn't, the company giving the refund would bear all the cost, while a proportion of the income from the original ticket may have gone to other companies. To do that accurately all Train Operating Companies pay an outside contractor to manage the division of funds correctly. This entails a fairly long and detailed series of administrative procedures that make sure we act fairly, legally and responsibly for our customers. In light of the above we feel £10.00 is a realistic and reasonable amount to charge.

On this occasion in light of the circumstances and in order to reach a more positive and swift outcome to this matter, I am happy to send you £7.20 in National Rail Vouchers as a one of Goodwill Gesture. I have arranged for the vouchers to be sent to your address. Please allow up to 14 working days for them to arrive. Thank you once again for taking the time to contact us and please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Kind Regards
Customer Relations Advisor.

[jaguarsuk]

I used to work for a railway company and what they are saying is true I'm afraid.

If you purchase a ticket and return it to the same ticket office on the day of purchase they are able to refund it straight back. However, once the operator changes shift or there is a change of day they have balanced their ticket issuing account, so could not reverse the ticket. Equally if you purchase from the machine it can't be refunded other than centrally returning it.

All refunds then become subject to National Rail Conditions of Carriage. The regulator would be the Rail Delivery Group whom set the conditions of carriage and therefore you would get much the same response. When purchasing a ticket you are agreeing to those terms.

It may be worth changing your routine to purchase from the ticket office on the day of travel in future to save any such hassles again.

[Phaeton]

I had to go to London week last Wednesday, I got to the station, collected the pre-paid tickets from the machine & went out onto the platform. There was no information about the train I was waiting for, but there was information about the next one to arrive, I waited expecting the board to change to my train. After about 5 minutes in which I paid for my parking the board hadn't changed, so I went back into the ticket office to see the board in there was showing the train was cancelled. On asking in there the staff claimed that the train company were putting a coach on to go part way, it would take 2 hours for that part of the journey then we would have to wait for another train to finish the journey, the original journey time was 1 hour 40 minutes. The coach was already 20 minutes late.

I declined to go on the train as I would miss my meeting, I then contacted the train company as their online system to reclaim the fare kept giving me an error eventually after speaking to 3 different people on 3 occasions it became apparent I couldn't claim the money back from them as I had bought the tickets via thetrainline.com I had to contact them direct who although knew the train had been cancelled & it was an online order could not refund the fare & I would have to sent them the physical tickets to Edinburgh via recorded delivery before anything could be processed.

Another one, I went to London on Tuesday this week, I had to get from King's Cross to London Bridge, if I used my Debit Card it would cost £2.40 each way but I would not get a receipt, if I wanted a receipt I would have to use the ticket machine which meant each ticket would cost £4.95 each, so £2.55 to provide a receipt.

[jaguarsuk]

I had to go to London week last Wednesday, I got to the station, collected the pre-paid tickets from the machine & went out onto the platform. There was no information about the train I was waiting for, but there was information about the next one to arrive, I waited expecting the board to change to my train. After about 5 minutes in which I paid for my parking the board hadn't changed, so I went back into the ticket office to see the board in there was showing the train was cancelled. On asking in there the staff claimed that the train company were putting a coach on to go part way, it would take 2 hours for that part of the journey then we would have to wait for another train to finish the journey, the original journey time was 1 hour 40 minutes. The coach was already 20 minutes late.

I declined to go on the train as I would miss my meeting, I then contacted the train company as their online system to reclaim the fare kept giving me an error eventually after speaking to 3 different people on 3 occasions it became apparent I couldn't claim the money back from them as I had bought the tickets via thetrainline.com I had to contact them direct who although knew the train had been cancelled & it was an online order could not refund the fare & I would have to sent them the physical tickets to Edinburgh via recorded delivery before anything could be processed.

Another one, I went to London on Tuesday this week, I had to get from King's Cross to London Bridge, if I used my Debit Card it would cost £2.40 each way but I would not get a receipt, if I wanted a receipt I would have to use the ticket machine which meant each ticket would cost £4.95 each, so £2.55 to provide a receipt.

I understand your frustrations and I don't disagree with you, but the railway is very slow to catch up with the world in terms of technology.

As I said in my initial post, whether you purchased via the train company's own website or the trainline whom are an agent when purchasing online you'll usually have to send them in. For what it's worth you can use any train operators website to purchase tickets to go between any two destinations, I have always found cross country trains to be the best in terms of reliability and processing refunds online. Plus if you use an operators site they don't add a booking fee line trainline do.

The tube and National Rail are very different with the tube wanting to move everything to Oyster and contactless they are offering the incentive of cheaper fares to achieve it. Depending on where home is, you might have been able to buy a travelcard into London covering your journey both on National Rail and the tube, which as it's a normal ticket collectable from the machines at your station would also provide a receipt, but also quite cost effective.

[Phaeton]

I understand your frustrations and I don't disagree with you, but the railway is very slow to catch up with the world in terms of technology.

The tube and National Rail are very different with the tube wanting to move everything to Oyster and contactless they are offering the incentive of cheaper fares to achieve it. Depending on where home is, you might have been able to buy a travelcard into London covering your journey both on National Rail and the tube, which as it's a normal ticket collectable from the machines at your station would also provide a receipt, but also quite cost effective.

The most annoying thing really is that they already knew the train was being cancelled before I physically collected my tickets from the machine yet they still allowed me to do. Any good system would have flagged it to me (even possibly by email) to say it's been cancelled & do I want to travel or get a refund. As it was I was allowed to collect the tickets, go through onto the platform then whilst on the platform before I realised the train was cancelled I paid £9.75 parking

I have bought the travel card in the past but my meetings are normally around the St Paul's area so about 2.5-3 miles from King's Cross, if the weather is fine & I have the time I like to walk there. So pre-buying a ticket not to use it goes against my Yorkshire ethics, on this occasion I only used the tube as the train was 40 minutes late, then I walked back.

[jaguarsuk]

The most annoying thing really is that they already knew the train was being cancelled before I physically collected my tickets from the machine yet they still allowed me to do. Any good system would have flagged it to me (even possibly by email) to say it's been cancelled & do I want to travel or get a refund. As it was I was allowed to collect the tickets, go through onto the platform then whilst on the platform before I realised the train was cancelled I paid £9.75 parking

I have bought the travel card in the past but my meetings are normally around the St Paul's area so about 2.5-3 miles from King's Cross, if the weather is fine & I have the time I like to walk there. So pre-buying a ticket not to use it goes against my Yorkshire ethics, on this occasion I only used the tube as the train was 40 minutes late, then I walked back.

Like I say, the railway and modern technology don't mix. Plus in terms of service it's way down the list when there's money to be made.

The realtime information the trainline have on their app or website is a API they call to display the station departure board, so it should be easy enough for them to set up some sort of alert to tell you. It requires them spending money and only benefits you though, so they just don't care.