Ticket Issuing Error: Southeastern Weekender

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An interesting observation was made whilst purchasing a Southeastern Weekender promotional fare for a relative to travel this past weekend… have a look at the attached image!

You will observe that the start date on the Return coupon is destinctly after the valid until date, the intention with this ticket, being a promotional fare, is that you travel out on the Friday or Saturday and travel back on the Saturday or Sunday of the same weekend. This is an error in the set up of the ticket in the TIS, also applied to the WK3 fare, and most confused station staff when issuing the ticket. On this occasion they stamped the rear of the ticket and requested that the ticket be passed as intended on Sunday 17th.

It is also of note that, as demonstrated here the validity field is used rather well to indicate the days that travel is valid, however a TIS (at least Fujitsu Star as used by Abellio Greater Anglia at Norwich), will allow a WK3 product to be issued for outward travel on a Saturday despite printing Validity Friday Only.

I'm assuming that Southeastern will be aware of this by now as it, I expect, is affecting a vast swab of their weekend promotional fares. I thought it may be of interest to some forum members, another quirk in the system.

TP

 

[causton]

Was this really paid for by cheque, or are the TIS suppliers botching the standards as usual?
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[transportphoto]

Was this really paid for by cheque, or are the TIS suppliers botching the standards as usual?
[/offtopic]

That's the replacement ticket issued by the clerk after initially issuing a WK3… she swapped it over but only non-issued the first after I left. I paid by card for the initial transaction! I guess choosing Company Cheque is a lot easier, and easier to account for, than refunding me and trying again?

 

[causton]

That's the replacement ticket issued by the clerk after initially issuing a WK3… she swapped it over but only non-issued the first after I left. I paid by card for the initial transaction! I guess choosing Company Cheque is a lot easier, and easier to account for, than refunding me and trying again?

Very dodgy under our accounting procedures, however they may have local instructions.

"Cheque" is just counted as Cash but prints Q on the ticket for us, and we balance it out with a Company Cheque sundry rather than a Cash Banked sundry.

People have been known to issue another ticket as cash, then non-issue the original one to cash, to save refunding and reselling on the card (which obviously may not work if the second transaction declines!).

The problem with that being that if the person asks for a refund on the second ticket, they would get a cash refund, which is against the terms of the merchant's agreements for card companies (pay by card = MUST get card refund, one simple reason is for cashback eligibilty etc).

Therefore they could be non-issuing and re-issuing that way, and then the Cheque method of payment prompts any subsequent refund-accepting clerk to see the details of the original transaction.

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Or, much simpler, they clicked Cheque as it is next to Card, and intended to sell you the new ticket then refund the original to the card.