Delay repay rejected

[N/100]

I am trying to decide how to respond to a rejected delay repay from EMR and would be grateful for opinions.

I was travelling on a super offpeak return from St Pancras to Loughborough. Due to a person being hit by a train north of Leicester , the train was held at Market Harborough. As my day was ruined by then I went back to London. I can see that the train did later continue to Leicester and was terminated there 130 minutes late.

My claim for a full refund has been rejected “because the ticket you supplied has been used against another claim”.

I cannot explain this. I haven’t had a response to a second claim, which rules out inadvertent double submission.

After sleeping on my initial thoughts on how to respond (probably a good thing), I was thinking of appealing on the lines of

• If they think someone else has submitted a claim on the same ticket, to offer to provide confirmation of address, card used , etc to confirm my claim is genuine and they can pursue the other claim. Unfortunately the appeal facility doesn’t allow for anything other than flat text responses so I am assuming there is no way to attach proof to my appeal.
• If they think I have submitted two claims, my appeal should be treated as a Subject Access Request under GDPR for them to supply all the data they hold on me.

Any thoughts on how this can arise or better approaches would be welcome, thanks.

 

[Watershed]

I am trying to decide how to respond to a rejected delay repay from EMR and would be grateful for opinions.

I was travelling on a super offpeak return from St Pancras to Loughborough. Due to a person being hit by a train north of Leicester , the train was held at Market Harborough. As my day was ruined by then I went back to London. I can see that the train did later continue to Leicester and was terminated there 130 minutes late.

My claim for a full refund has been rejected “because the ticket you supplied has been used against another claim”.

I cannot explain this. I haven’t had a response to a second claim, which rules out inadvertent double submission.

After sleeping on my initial thoughts on how to respond (probably a good thing), I was thinking of appealing on the lines of

• If they think someone else has submitted a claim on the same ticket, to offer to provide confirmation of address, card used , etc to confirm my claim is genuine and they can pursue the other claim. Unfortunately the appeal facility doesn’t allow for anything other than flat text responses so I am assuming there is no way to attach proof to my appeal.
• If they think I have submitted two claims, my appeal should be treated as a Subject Access Request under GDPR for them to supply all the data they hold on me.

Any thoughts on how this can arise or better approaches would be welcome, thanks.

Actually, in this case you need to be claiming for a full refund from the retailer from whom you bought the ticket (i.e. the operator of the ticket office/machine or website you used).

A refund is applicable in cases where you do not use a ticket, including where there is disruption and you decide to abandon the journey and return to your origin. Effectively they haven't delivered what you paid for, so you are getting back what you paid.

Delay Repay is compensation for when you reach your destination but are delayed. Here, this is an agreed sum of contractual damages payable when they deliver what you paid for, but later than advertised. That sum might be calculated by reference to the ticket price but it's fundamentally different to a refund.

Unfortunately the rail industry rarely makes it clear which is the appropriate channel to use. Lots of staff, both frontline and back office, have a mistaken understanding on the subject.

 

[JBuchananGB]

Whether the reason for rejection makes sense, rejection is correct because you abandoned your journey. How and from whom did you buy the ticket? You need to contact them and request a refund, without an admin fee because the reason was disruption.

 

[N/100]

Thanks for the replies and I get the point being made.

I purchased the ticket from the EMR website on click through from nationalrail.co.uk so I believe I did at least address it to the right target

I see there is an email address [email protected] for refunds quoted on their website so I have the option of trying that.

In response to JBuchanan "rejection is correct because you abandoned your journey" within the constraints of the delay repay form I was not able to spell out that I abandoned the journey, although that detail seemed unnecessary given all routes should lead to the correct outcome of a full refund. So my abandonment cannot account for the rejection of the claim.

For that reason, and because I am nervous about starting a separate trail that risks being perceived (incorrectly) as a third attempt to recover money on the same ticket, I still welcome views on what might have gone wrong, before I take action.

 

[Starmill]

For that reason, and because I am nervous about starting a separate trail that risks being perceived (incorrectly) as a third attempt to recover money on the same ticket, I still welcome views on what might have gone wrong, before I take action.

What you can do in that situation is email EMR customer relations including your reference number from the delay repay claim and saying that you'd like to withdraw the claim because you've made an error in applying for compensation, when in fact you wanted to apply for a refund instead.

Are you still in time to make a refund claim in the normal manner?

If you would like to make a subject access request later, to find out what might have actually happened with the initial claim, you could well do so. But I would probably wait until the refund application is complete.

 

[AlterEgo]

I would actually call EMR. For whatever reason, they think the ticket has already been refunded or claimed against. There may be unintended consequences if the OP seeks to refund even through the proper channels. A phone call should sort things out.

 

[robbeech]

This is a standard ‘out of a hat’ rejection reason from EMR. You can essentially ignore the Christmas party funding nonsense and move on to ensure you get the money you are entitled to.
This rejection reason is common when people did travel and were delayed, I've had it recently when delayed by an hour. They used 3 nonsense excuses back to back, this being the first in order to put me off claiming and avoid paying out. This dirty trick will work with many people and will save them thousands. I’m not convinced your abandoning of the journey has had any effect here as you state they don’t know this anyway confirming the farce.

it’s important to note that EMR will tell you to use the delay repay form for an abandoned journey anyway. No doubt in a few months they’ll be bringing fraud charges against those who have followed their advice.

As for what to do now, ignore everything that has happened to date.
Contact by telephone or email (if you telephone they’ll likely tell you to email)
include in the email :

• Screenshot or photo of the ticket
• Intended itinerary (even if it’s obvious from the tickets)
• Actual journey, including train you used to return to your origin
• Request for a full refund for your ticket(s)
• Reference number for any ongoing claim and a brief explanation stating you tried to claim this way but it was rejected and you realise it may not have been the appropriate method.

If you have paper tickets they may ask you to post them off to them, they may ask you to cut them up down the middle before posting, they may ask you to cut them down the middle and photograph them again. It doesn’t matter that the ticket has expired they still want this step to be taken because it makes it more difficult for you and less likely to carry on with the claim / claim again saving them money.

Once they have received What they have requested, (we could easily be 2-3 weeks in from your initial email by now) they’ll either fob you off with another excuse or more likely they’ll accept they owe a refund. They’ll likely ask what method you will like the refund even though it should be obvious if you paid with card, this comes across as courtesy but a more cynical person would suggest it’s just buying more time and providing another opportunity for the passenger to give up.
You’ll confirm you want the payment back to the card you used to pay and then within a further 10 working days they’ll confirm a refund will be going to your account within a FURTHER 10 working days (but can be up to 20 in busy times, which is all the time).

You may have spotted that I have been disappointed with how appallingly they handle these sorts of things, I certainly hope things go well for you.

 

[N/100]

Just to report back on this.

I have now been told that my refund has been agreed and will land next week.

I emailed the sales support address and took the approach of full disclosure of the delay repay request. It wasn't mentioned in the subsequent exchange so either it was ignored or they realised the "another claim" reference was nonsense and so brushed it under the carpet

The process was actually pretty prompt and efficient (i was away for a week so didn't start the process for some time after the posts in this thread), and hard to believe the sales support function belonged to the same organisation as the very user unfriendly delay repay system.

Thanks to those who responded with suggestions.