No arbitrary enforcement isn't great. I don't know where you get that idea from....
Just the general feeling I get from the forum, forget I mentioned it.
You said that the railway was in the right because the law makes tickets the property of the railway. My point was that the law doesn't determine what is right and wrong, and of course there is de facto and actual law. In theory tickets belong the railway, in practice they are discarded as worthless....
In respect of them acting in accordance with the relevant laws, rules, terms and conditions, they are 'in the right' to retain a ticket, except, clearly, when the passenger feels they are not.
I personally speaking couldn't care less. The point being that there is an expectation, and in reality a general practice that you can retain your ticket. If that's going to change then so be it, but it needs to be effectively communicated so that there's a general understanding that you can't keep your train ticket....
Companies should already have checked this before setting policies that it may not be possible to follow. I fail to see how stickers at sales points, writing in the terms of sale on websites and printed information on tickets about the conditions attached to them is not effectively communicated, unless the real problem is forcing people to read them?
If a passenger buys a ticket then, according to actual day-to-day experience using trains, he can retain that ticket for submission for expenses....
If it is not collected by the railway, then I guess the person can do with it as they see fit, but if the ticket is collected, it may be too late to get a VAT receipt for it. Better to get a receipt from the start, don't you think?
A train ticket is a pretty good record of an expense occurred, they show cost, and the points travelled to and from. Any receipt I've ever received doesn't show that, perhaps yours are different, but the most efficient means for a company to verify that a claimed expense is legitimate is with the actual ticket....
Well, since APTIS went a decade or so ago, I believe I have only seen itemised receipts from the machines I have used, perhaps I'm 'lucky'.
Again I don't know why you are talking about fault, this is not about fault, this is about the fact that making basic accommodation for the specifications of corporate account departments is good sound business sense - that's why in most petrol stations they ask me if I want a VAT receipt, because they know that I am likely to need one to reclaim the fuel on expenses, and if I forget or don't get one I will take my business elsewhere. Likewise if I am told at the end of my train journey that I can't keep my ticket, and should have asked for a receipt, even though every other time I've been able to walk through without question, then again I am likely to take my business elsewhere....
The railway offer receipts, ticket prices can be checked online FREE OF CHARGE, what more do you need? Why is it up to the railway to sort out another businesses accounts beyond that?
Ticket vending machines are in stations. They issue a receipt which looks like this:
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2286/2231155081_ba293b26ed_o.jpg
It provides no record of the actual travel purchased. The ticket does provide this record. The other ticket types you mention are available on a piecemeal basis, whereas the train ticket is universal and valid across the entire country....
That is a
SALES VOUCHER. It says so at the top, I'm not sure how you missed that bit. A receipt has
RECEIPT written on it.
The receipt does not give accurate information about the ticket that has been sold....
Show me one.
As we have seen with the House of Commons, an expenses policy that is not exceedingly scrupulous and careful will be abused and even defrauded....
By dishonest people, frankly, if a company's employees are not trustworthy it is up to that company to sort it out.
....There are 650 MPs, and at least five were convicted of criminal offences in relation to expenses, dozens resigned, and numerous others appear to have abused the system.....
And I bet the checking system in place was not suitable for the expenses system they had.
I'm not sure what sort of fantasy land companies are expected to inhabit where they trust their staff without question, but it isn't one I would want to business in. News reports of companies going bust because of expenses fraud and outright theft are common.
Like I say, all the receipts I have issued (for two companies at opposite ends of the country) have been itemised, why a company needs more than that I do not know, I can only think that the honesty of their employees must be in question.
Also, some companies choose to book travel tickets for their employees, rather than let the employee buy them and claim it back. Perhaps that is a better system.
The railway can also allow people to keep their tickets, it even says so in the terms of carriage:
"Where delays, cancellations or poor service arise for reasons within the control of a Train Company or Rail Service Company, you are entitled to compensation"
"
When you make your claim you must provide a ticket or other authority to travel which was valid for that journey. A Train Company will allow you to retain a ticket for this purpose."
So in other words the train companies won't even accept that one of your receipts are valid proof of the journey being undertaken, and they are the ones selling the tickets and running the trains, why on earth would you expect a company that isn't in the business of running trains, checking delay records or anything else, to do so?
:roll::roll:
To be fair, if you submit a ticket to the railway in the end anyway, what difference is there in allowing someone to keep it for that bit longer? Further, tickets checked on the train can be marked to show which train the passenger was actually on, which may not be apparent from the receipt, I doubt this is essential for expenses claims.
Maybe, but you'd never believe that from reading this forum, in fact I reckon you'd think quite the opposite.
I don't even begin to understand what you mean by dying argument of a losing battle. That's just your [convenient] opinion, and nonsense to boot. Don't like what you hear? Brush it aside with clever sounding sophistry....
No, it's not "[convenient] opinion", it's experience from 15 years working on the railway. The only time that ever gets uttered is when people are not getting their way.
Oh, and Ryanair is a company, not an *industry*. D'oh....
Ryanair is representing air travel is it not? In the same way one of the rail companies might be seen to represent the railway.
Not at all. I don't care how many people have read it. In reality few people do, so legalistically quoting from it to prove just how nasty or stupid passengers are (and yes, they *do* pay your wages, no matter how much you may not like this), is pure pedantry....
According to a company director I spoke to earlier in the year, the average ticket revenue for an average journey on Northern is £3 and the average cost of that journey is apparently £6, so, if true, there is a chance that the revenue pays someone's wages, but there is an equal chance that it does not.
Quite a chip on that shoulder....
Where? Oh I wish I could see it, I love chips, anyone got some mayo?
Where have I said anything at all is the railways' fault? Too defensive by half....
Oh I'm sorry, here I was thinking everyone was saying the railway (and/or it's many companies, brands, employees and other representatives are responsible for allowing other companies to have accurate expenses claims information and when the railway follows the rules everyone has agreed to, it is evil and fully to blame for everything the universe can throw at it. Silly me.
The fact is the railway is adept at hiding behind legalistic irrelevances (like who actually owns a small piece of paper, something passengers really could not care less about, and it would seem, most staff). Luckily the practice on the ground is that most staff are in fact pretty helpful and don't spout legalistic drivel at passengers when faced with polite requests to retain tickets, and long may this continue.
It's more like card really, with a nice smooth thermal coating on one side and a magnetic strip on the other, but I'm sure that's just a trivial detail.