Complex Penalty Fare

[tony6499]

I think the main problem is that the revenue staff are not properly trained so don't realise what are the correct validities of tickets/routes etc.

I'm still surprised that nobody working for a TOC hasn't approached RJ to see if he would be interested in training their revenue staff.

 

[Ferret]

I think the main problem is that the revenue staff are not properly trained so don't realise what are the correct validities of tickets/routes etc.

It goes far deeper than that. It's about how you deal with irregularities that you find too, and this is what I'm being critical of. Read through RJ's back catalogue of posts - irregularities filling in UFNs, not understanding some quite basic features of the NRCoC - pretty basic stuff that should be trained in Guard school and rebriefed as a reminder on a regular basis.

I'm also recalling an incident that made the press where some squaddies returning from active service abroad couldn't land at Brize owing to fog, so were diverted to East Midlands. Of course, they had travel warrants for Oxford to London area. Instead of taking the warrants and basic details from the squaddies concerned, issuing zero fare tickets for them to travel, and completing TIRs explaining the circumstances, EMT revenue staff booted them off the train! An utterly indefensible course of action, and at the very least a disciplinary offence that should result in a formal warning, if not worthy of dismissal quite honestly. If the staff concerned had done their jobs correctly, EMT could've contacted the MoD and arranged suitable payment - it really is that simple!

 

[talltim]

Why didn't the squaddies buy new tickets before boarding?

 

[Ferret]

Why didn't the squaddies buy new tickets before boarding?

Squaddies returning from active duty in Afghanistan or the Falklands often do not have any cash on them!

A more pertinent question would be why didn't their CO issue them with warrants from East Midlands Parkway when they were diverted to East Mids? Who knows, who cares? What you don't do as revenue protection staff in those circumstances is expose your employers to the wrath of the national press by booting them off when they've no other means of getting home. It's hardly their fault that they are in Nottinghamshire instead of Oxfordshire after all......!

 

[sheff1]

It goes far deeper than that. It's about how you deal with irregularities that you find too, and this is what I'm being critical of. Read through RJ's back catalogue of posts - irregularities filling in UFNs, not understanding some quite basic features of the NRCoC - pretty basic stuff that should be trained in Guard school and rebriefed as a reminder on a regular basis.

Quite. The thing is, though, these people are convinced they are right and are not interested in anything a mere passenger tries to explain to them. As mentioned earlier, this seems to be part of the endemic culture within EMT where it is felt that the 'rules' do not apply to them for some reason.

 

[talltim]

I don't see why they are any different from anyone else returning from abroad and being sent to a different airport (apart from that airlines normally organise transfer back to the original airport). My company issues me with a pass valid in South Yorkshire, if my flight landed at East Midlands instead of Finningley I would expect to buy a ticket and reclaim it from the company, not just travel. (Not that I to go anywhere more exotic than Dinnington anyway!)

 

[Ferret]

I don't see why they are any different from anyone else returning from abroad and being sent to a different airport (apart from that airlines normally organise transfer back to the original airport). My company issues me with a pass valid in South Yorkshire, if my flight landed at East Midlands instead of Finningley I would expect to buy a ticket and reclaim it from the company, not just travel. (Not that I to go anywhere more exotic than Dinnington anyway!)

Irrelevant. The MoD provide travel home for their people when they return from active service. That's part of 'the deal', so to speak. I imagine the squaddies had no money, just the warrants from Oxford. How exactly do you propose that they get home in that situation in the evening? Stand outside the front of the station with a begging bowl?!

 

[talltim]

I would expect someone from the MOD/army buy them tickets.

 

[Ferret]

I would expect someone from the MOD/army buy them tickets.

To perhaps explain things a little for you, the MoD provide them with travel warrants when they return from active service. For whatever reason, their Commanding Officer did not provide fresh warrants once they'd landed at the wrong airport on this occasion. Perhaps they didn't have a warrant book on the plane! Still, what matters is that the Squaddies in this case were left in a situation by their employers, and more than likely had no means of paying for themselves to get home. They had done nothing wrong, you can maybe argue that the MoD had left them up the creek minus a paddle though. How and why in those circumstances can you justify putting them off the train in the late evening?! Do you honestly think that's the right thing to do morally, before we even get into the business of how to do your job properly?

If you want to keep it simple - the MoD didn't provide the correct documents for travel from East Mids Parkway on this occasion because of circumstances on the day, and as a Train Company who receive a nice steady income stream through these travel warrants, you sort it with the MoD afterwards, not the tired squaddies who are victims of circumstance.

EMT got absolutely caned in the Press (and on the wnxx forum!) over this one, and rightly so.

 

[talltim]

To perhaps explain things a little for you, the MoD provide them with travel warrants when they return from active service. For whatever reason, their Commanding Officer did not provide fresh warrants once they'd landed at the wrong airport on this occasion. Perhaps they didn't have a warrant book on the plane! Still, what matters is that the Squaddies in this case were left in a situation by their employers, and more than likely had no means of paying for themselves to get home. They had done nothing wrong, you can maybe argue that the MoD had left them up the creek minus a paddle though. How and why in those circumstances can you justify putting them off the train in the late evening?! Do you honestly think that's the right thing to do morally, before we even get into the business of how to do your job properly?

If you want to keep it simple - the MoD didn't provide the correct documents for travel from East Mids Parkway on this occasion because of circumstances on the day, and as a Train Company who receive a nice steady income stream through these travel warrants, you sort it with the MoD afterwards, not the tired squaddies who are victims of circumstance.

EMT got absolutely caned in the Press (and on the wnxx forum!) over this one, and rightly so.

I think my issue is that I don't see why squaddies are any different from any other employee who has been let down by their employer. If the same had happened to an employee of some random company (or even public sector employee) do you think that EMT should let them travel without tickets and them try to claim the money back from their employer?

 

[Ferret]

I think my issue is that I don't see why squaddies are any different from any other employee who has been let down by their employer. If the same had happened to an employee of some random company (or even public sector employee) do you think that EMT should let them travel without tickets and them try to claim the money back from their employer?

No, but then the MoD is quite unique in that it holds an account with the train companies by way of the warrant system. Most other companies do not.

Speaking as somebody involved in revenue protection myself, I can't emphasise enough how wrong it is to just throw somebody off the train as EMT's staff did on that occasion. Aside from what I've said in previous posts about how you *should* deal with that situation, you are just passing the problem onto the next person by ejecting them! Is that fair on your colleagues?

 

[Wolfie]

Quite. The thing is, though, these people are convinced they are right and are not interested in anything a mere passenger tries to explain to them. As mentioned earlier, this seems to be part of the endemic culture within EMT where it is felt that the 'rules' do not apply to them for some reason.

It seems to be a Stagecoach thing, as many other posters have apparently seen the exact same combination of compacent arrogance, sheer bloody mindedness and complete ignorance of their actual obligations, with SWT staff. Having seen Souter's (Sir my rearend!) reported attitude towards passengers I am unsurprised.

Quote from Christian Woolmer:
“Souter poured petrol on the fire by suggesting that some of his customers had nothing better to do than to write letters of complaint in office time and wondered whether their bosses knew they were doing this. --- Cox did not help by saying that ‘critics were fully paid-up members of the hindsight club’.”
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I would expect someone from the MOD/army buy them tickets. Or perhaps use their initiative. I know initiative isn't really the done thing in the army, but...

As someone who works for MOD I find this a gratuitously offensive comment. Frankly I would take a squaddie over any one of Souter's comedians anytime.

How much negative PR did that incident achieve Souter's empire

Edited because:
a I realised the initial wording was wholly inappropiate.
b My issues with Souter relate to his words and actions not to his country of origin - reference to the latter was not apprpriate.

Apologies if anyone was offended prior to the change.

 

[W230]

It goes far deeper than that. It's about how you deal with irregularities that you find too, and this is what I'm being critical of. Read through RJ's back catalogue of posts - irregularities filling in UFNs, not understanding some quite basic features of the NRCoC - pretty basic stuff that should be trained in Guard school and rebriefed as a reminder on a regular basis.

I totally agree. From reading RJ's posts I can only assume that EMT do not have the resources/money/will (insert any other excuse as appropriate) to train their staff properly. Staff make mistakes, we all make mistakes, but RJ's trips must be consistently bringing their poor training to the attention of at least the prosecutions team, and yet EMT's actions seem to be saying "cancel the UFN, RJ is right" and leaving it there. Surely, they must recognise that their staff require some update/refresher training?

I agree though as well that the bigger a thorn RJ becomes in their side, the more likely they are to think that RJ is the problem and not their own poor levels of training (this is not meant to sound like a criticism towards RJ - it is certainly not one!)

 

[AlexS]

No, but then the MoD is quite unique in that it holds an account with the train companies by way of the warrant system. Most other companies do not.

Speaking as somebody involved in revenue protection myself, I can't emphasise enough how wrong it is to just throw somebody off the train as EMT's staff did on that occasion. Aside from what I've said in previous posts about how you *should* deal with that situation, you are just passing the problem onto the next person by ejecting them! Is that fair on your colleagues?

Before everyone gets carried away, I feel it's worth pointing out that EMT agreed with the vast majority of posters here and dismissed the train manager concerned (it wasn't the first incident).

 

[Ferret]

Before everyone gets carried away, I feel it's worth pointing out that EMT agreed with the vast majority of posters here and dismissed the train manager concerned (it wasn't the first incident).

Wow! In fairness, I just cannot defend what happened there, it really was bad. Talk about giving Guards a bad name....

 

[RJ]

I travelled again on EMT today!

Boarded train at St Pancras (first stop Leicester of course) and the TM came to check my ticket. He didn't know where either station on the ticket was and because of the price of it, decided to summon the on board RPI.

I encountered this RPI before over a year ago back when I was using the Z1-2 Season with the multiple split Priv SORs. He didn't know about Condition 19c. As you might expect, an absolute pleasure to deal with. Overlooking the projectile spitting whilst talking, I only had to bite my lip whilst he spoke to me like I was a toddler and condescended me to high heaven. Back then, I used to keep quiet as I didn't want to draw unnecessary attention to my use of "loopholes." Even these days, I never let it be said that I'm rude to a member of staff. However, he's lucky that he had the sense to do the right thing and let it go today.

He initially he gave me back the ticket and asked me for ticket for the journey I was undertaking. So I gave him the same ticket again. He asked me where the two stations shown on the ticket were and when I identified that, he said that I was way off route and that I must have been confused. I politely explained to him that I was on a permitted route but he wasn't listening to me.

I asked him how sure he was that I was wrong. He said he was pretty sure, so I told him I was 100% sure, certain that I was right. This went back and forth and he eventually asked me for my YP Railcard. I showed it to him and he withdrew it along with the ticket because it didn't appear to be signed. I told him that I had signed it in a couple of years ago (it's a 3 year plastic version that's a bit worse for wear) so he handed it back and gave me a marker pen to sign it again.

As he had withdrawn the ticket, I told him to give me a free SOS to the destination shown on the ticket (worth well over £100.) He said he'd then sell me a ticket to the station where I was getting off the train, which I wasn't having from him. If he was going to withdraw the ticket, he would have to do it by the book which means a free ticket to complete the journey as shown on the ticket. Which means extra paperwork. So he gave me back the ticket and decided to issue a UFN to my destination.

I wasn't having this from him either. I told him that I don't ramp with UFNs and if he wanted to take the matter further, he should do an MG11 instead if he really believed he was certain that he was right. I told him I would prefer to see him appear as a witness in court and would not hesitate to cause severe embarrassment by providing a simple explanation to the court as to why my ticket was valid.

He said I would have to buy a new undiscounted Anytime Single. I immediately said I had no money for the purpose of buying a new ticket, so he decided to take out his UFN pad and was ready to start filling it out. I then told him I would pay for a new ticket after all, which he printed from his machine. I produced a £50 American Express Traveller's Cheque, a £25 Rail Travel Voucher and some cash and handed the lot to him. If Mr. RPI of 20 years knows so much that he openly admits he doesn't need to double check anything, this should have been a doddle for him.

He attempted to reject the Traveller's Cheque, but I gave it back to him and told him that if he had a problem with the methods of payment that ATOC stipulate must be accepted on board, he should take it up with them through the proper channels and not inconvenience me with it. I then said nothing and after a moment, he handed me back everything and non-issued the ticket he had just printed out. I asked why and he said he was no longer charging me and would pass the original ticket I presented as valid.

He left, then after a minute came back asking to take down the number of the ticket I presented him with. The way that he was looking at the date on the ticket (return portion of an SVR,) it was as if he was thinking about trying to investigate if I had already used it or something. He did say that he would be having the matter investigated further and if there was one single, tiny thing wrong with it then he would be making sure it would be followed up. I thought "yeah, whatever." He did say that I was a very knowledgeable, patronising man after I called into question the attitude of staff who refuse to drop matters despite not being certain whether or not they are right.

I didn't just work in a ticket office before - I also worked in revenue protection and so staff need to think twice before attempting any psychological tricks or covert methods to deduce if I have done something wrong. There seems to be a propensibility for these staff (old school and new breed) to look at me and either think I was born yesterday, or a fare evader trying to blag my way out of trouble by making things up. But never a fare paying passenger who might have done a little bit of homework, which I think is a sad indictment.

Initially, the TM was standing there smiling when the RPI was talking to me, but as it dawned that I wasn't having a bar of it from the RPI, the smile gradually disappeared. Funny that!

Ah well, another day, another journey completed in peace .

 

[bb21]

Do they have to accept Traveller's Cheques? I ask because I have been looking at various sources and cannot see where it states that Traveller's Cheques must be accepted.

 

[RJ]

Yes - the official rules published by ATOC state that whatever payment methods are accepted in ticket offices, must be accepted on train. I still have the training material from my old job in the ticket office/revenue protection and understand this has not changed since.

It may not be publicised and if TOCs are not training staff on things like this, that's their business. By willingly putting staff out who are ill aware of rules and procedures, they leave themselves wide open should the wrong person be inconvenienced by this.

 

[barrykas]

Do they have to accept Traveller's Cheques? I ask because I have been looking at various sources and cannot see where it states that Traveller's Cheques must be accepted.

The Manual specifies that Travellers' Cheques MAY be accepted, it doesn't say MUST be accepted...Having said that, it says the same for cash as well!

And to return to the subject of MOD Warrants momentarily, they're increasingly using ToD instead of dishing out warrants...much to the chagrin of revenue staff.

 

[bb21]

The Manual specifies that Travellers' Cheques MAY be accepted, it doesn't say MUST be accepted...Having said that, it says the same for cash as well!

This is what I noticed too, presumably to cover themselves in the event of people tendering a large fare in 2p coins, as that would not be legal tender. They have however cleverly steered clear of the minefield that is "legal tender" by not mentioning it explicitly.

I notice the modal verb in the card payment section being "should" rather than "may". Subtle difference.

 

[Yew]

Yes - the official rules published by ATOC state that whatever payment methods are accepted in ticket offices, must be accepted on train. I still have the training material from my old job in the ticket office/revenue protection and understand this has not changed since.

It may not be publicised and if TOCs are not training staff on things like this, that's their business. By willingly putting staff out who are ill aware of rules and procedures, they leave themselves wide open should the wrong person be inconvenienced by this.

Try some rail travel vouchers next time (thinking about it I need to use mine) as on them they say something along the lines of that they can only be used at a ticket office

 

[Ferret]

And to return to the subject of MOD Warrants momentarily, they're increasingly using ToD instead of dishing out warrants...much to the chagrin of revenue staff.

Yes, the commission we used to earn! Grrrr! Mind you, one of my colleagues copped the benefit of an A330s worth of squaddies with warrants at the tail end of last year from Oxford. He didn't get them all done, and still paid in 5000 quid. Jammy sod!

 

[Scotty]

Legal tender only applies for historic payments, such as the settlement of a debt.

 

[bnm]

Try some rail travel vouchers next time (thinking about it I need to use mine) as on them they say something along the lines of that they can only be used at a ticket office

Never had a problem using RTVs on a train where facilities weren't available at the start station.

I've also used them on a few occasion to make purchases from buffets and trolleys.

 

[island]

Consequently, I have amassed a certain amount in Travellers Cheques, Postal Orders and vouchers and will use these to pay for new tickets that on board staff incorrectly feel that they are ok to sting me for.

They might find it suspicious if you have a postal order already made out to East Midlands Trains Ltd.! Also, bear in mind Travellers Cheques are only valid when presented with valid ID.

 

[Ferret]

Never had a problem using RTVs on a train where facilities weren't available at the start station.

I've also used them on a few occasion to make purchases from buffets and trolleys.

RTVs are fine on the train - they are treated as any other travel warrant as far as we're concerned.

 

[bb21]

Legal tender only applies for historic payments, such as the settlement of a debt.

Which can happen, eg. if the passenger is paying at the end of his journey, or wishes to settle a UFN.

 

[David]

Just a quick note .... Buy accepting the need to buy a new ticket, your basically telling the TM and/or RPI that they are right and you are wrong. If I were in the same position, I would ask for either a TIR or MG11 or to be left alone if they are not certain ....

 

[maniacmartin]

RTVs are fine on the train - they are treated as any other travel warrant as far as we're concerned.

I would agree, but that isn't what they say on them:
"You can use this voucher at any station or rail-appointed Travel Agent as full or part payment for travel on services of the principal Train Companies(*), subject to any notes shown overleaf."

Of course TOCs may wish to accept them on-board too, but the RTV itself omits to mention this.

 

[Mojo]

Id imagine that wording is intentional to prevent people from thinking they can buy their tickets on the train in all circumstances