Instances of being wrongly told your valid ticket wasn't valid

[Joshua_Harman]

I just had an interaction with a member of barrier staff claiming that my Smartcard ticket wasn’t valid, because the Smartcard itself was from another TOC. This is obviously rubbish, and I managed to sort it out eventually and left.

Now I’m not interested in perusing a complaint, as I was able to leave the station. I was actually amused by the situation.

Fabrication of rules is something that is seen a lot here on the forums, often leading to much bigger problems than I had here.

So I thought I’d start a thread for issues you've encountered.

 

[scrapy]

I think it's more the case that staff get zero training on anything new like smart cards yet get things like not accepting other operators tickets drummed into them.

 

[fusionblue]

I was told at a jubilee line station that I can't add my annual gold card to my oyster card, and i just need to put my gold record card in the gate instead.

 

[Anonymous10]

I was told that I couldn't board the 1618 from Paddington on an off-peak ticket because it was after the peak time restrictions, which is 16:30. Ended up getting the customer service desk to speak to them.

 

[Hadders]

I just had an interaction with a member of barrier staff claiming that my Smartcard ticket wasn’t valid, because the Smartcard itself was from another TOC. This is obviously rubbish, and I managed to sort it out eventually and left.

Now I’m not interested in perusing a complaint, as I was able to leave the station. I was actually amused by the situation.

Fabrication of rules is something that is seen a lot here on the forums, often leading to much bigger problems than I had here.

So I thought I’d start a thread for issues you've encountered.

You really should submit a complaint to the company that operates the station where the incident happened. If train companies are not made aware then we cannot really complain when these things keep happening.

It's not about getting the member of staff into trouble, it's more about making sure that staff are correctly briefed and trained.

 

[sheff1]

Far too many to list, unfortunately, but the most common are:
(i) being told a ticket is not valid at an intermediate station (at some stations someone has even gone to the trouble of programming the gates to make such a statement in writing!), &
(ii) assertions that a split involving an area based ticket is only valid if the train stops at the changeover station.

Had the latter last weekend, but when I explained he was wrong he actually listened and checked on his phone before saying “you learn something every day”.
A pleasant change from the “I’ve worked here for XX years / don’t tell me my job“ brigade- phrases which guarantee they don’t know what they’re talking about.

 

[dciuk]

If gateline staff do not know which tickets are valid or invalid, it makes you wonder how the railway industry can justify penalising passengers for travelling on invalid tickets (I do not mean deliberate fare evasion, but genuine mistakes)

 

[STINT47]

I have also had my smart card rejected by staff because it's got a different TOCs name on it.

I have a key smart card from Southeastern which I will load tickets onto when the app let's me. On more than one occasion across a number of TOCs I've had guards and gate staff reject it as "we are not Southeastern".

I have also been told by staff that they cannot read smart cards as they don't have the right equipment, so you'll have to buy a new ticket then complain to the company that sold me the smart card.

Smart cards and other technology is great but the industry needs to do better when things are introduced.

 

[jelly28]

I was told my super off peak return ticket wasn’t valid even though I booked the exact trains I travelled on through the app and this was also on the weekend. This guy at Streatham always claims it isn’t a valid ticket even though I’m pretty sure it is

 

[cvs]

Good idea to have this thread. "Valid tickets declared invalid". This compilation will be very useful.. Station, TOC, ticket type, outcome.
I have personally reported two instances in separate threads.

 

[Andover]

It's not about getting the member of staff into trouble

How likely to actually happen is this? I've sometimes hesitated to cause a fuss that wasn't strictly necessary for that reason, but also had the feeling in practise the answer was 'fat chance'.

 

[KirkstallOne]

Not quite being told a valid ticket was invalid, but I was told I couldn’t possibly have got off a train from Kirkstall Forge because there was no train that had stopped at Kirkstall Forge that I could have been on (separate incident to the one some of you are familiar with!). Was quite the standoff, I recall saying ‘well it appears we are at an impasse, how shall we proceed?’.

The Carlisle RPI was condescending and smug at first thinking he had a gotcha moment, although once it was all cleared up he had the grace to apologise for his mistake.

 

[HandyHat]

I have also been told by staff that they cannot read smart cards as they don't have the right equipment, so you'll have to buy a new ticket then complain to the company that sold me the smart card.

Conversely, I've had SWR staff pull out their (what looked to me like a personal) phone and check my Smartcard using the National Rail Smartcard Manager app...

Some staff are definitely more proactive than others!

 

[WirralLine]

Conversely, I've had SWR staff pull out their (what looked to me like a personal) phone and check my Smartcard using the National Rail Smartcard Manager app...

Some staff are definitely more proactive than others!

I've done this before myself with a regular guy who produces a Merseytravel Metro card claiming to have an all zone railpass loaded onto it but it's blank. Blames my machine every time, I read it using my own phone with the Ecebs smart ticket checker app and surprisingly nothing comes up on there either! He's just topped it up, every time, but doesn't have a receipt..!

 

[BazingaTribe]

My own experiences have largely been lost tickets or getting on the wrong physical train with an Advance while two for the same destination were sitting on adjacent platforms, but in those cases the ticket wasn't present or valid to begin with, so it doesn't count. (I'm also a fly on the wall for this sort of thing in my own public sector organisation. Management do get grilled on customer service scores and the bar is set pretty high. They get a right of reply, but most of the discussion I see through my role involves pinpointing where extra training for teams that are actually messing up to do better is needed. If the public sector fully takes over the railways, I can certainly send in some really good customer relations managers and guide to best practices to help out!)

However, I witnessed a conversation early in December between a guard on the GWR Reading to Basingstoke train and someone who was struggling to find the right ticket on their phone and initially presented the wrong one. It passed off successfully and without any argument, but the guard did give him time to find the correct ticket and circled back after checking other tickets. There's one guard on that line that can be particularly inquisitorial, but he seems to have moved on since the pandemic, and he was a useful ally when I mentioned kids riding their bicycles over the tracks at Reading West in the pre-gated days. But you did kind of shrink back into your seat and try to look inconspicuous when he passed through...

 

[talldave]

Trying a break of journey/stopping short at a London Underground station with a cross London ticket is always a good strategy for an argument. If you want to escalate the heated debate to thermonuclear grade, just point out that you're doing this because the ticket to somewhere you're not going is cheaper than one to their station!! The battle usually ends with a "just this once" concession.

 

[methecooldude]

Conversely, I've had SWR staff pull out their (what looked to me like a personal) phone and check my Smartcard using the National Rail Smartcard Manager app...

Some staff are definitely more proactive than others!

We have Smartcard Manager on our company provided phones and I happen to have it on my personal phone. Doesn't really matter which is used, the action is still the same it's a publicly available app, I even advise customers to download it themselfs so they can sort these things out

 

[steamybrian]

Several occasions but here are a few.

Many years ago bought a Harrow-on-the hill to London pstaff privlidge underground ticket but then caught a train to Marylebone. TTI initially refused it but after much discussion he left me go. A few weeks later a colleague bought a priv. ticket from Amersham to Marylebone and used it on a Metropolitan Line train to Baker Street. At Baker Street he was threatened with illegal travel. In both instances staff were not trained on interavailability of tickets.

A recent occasion I was travelling on a West Coast Avanti train and on showing my staff travel card was asked for photocard. I argued with the TTI that as retired staff we are exempt from carrying one.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Very rare for on-train staff to do it in my experience (in contrast to bus drivers who reject anything that's even vaguely out of the norm - I've even seen Stagecoach drivers at Penrith saying "that's a train ticket" in response to the new Avanti through Advances to Keswick and needing to be convinced).

I have had Liverpool Lime St booking office tell me a Saver to London (it was a while ago) was only valid on direct trains and not via Birmingham, though. I did "go ter Laime Stsreets fer dat" and still got bad service!

 

[Adam Williams]

It's a loose fit, but in terms of "fabrication of rules":

Open access operator who shall not be named, with the passenger readily admitting to having used the ticket to travel on a journey, to both the operator and retailer:

The ticket has not been scanned, and is therefore rendered unused, as is industry-wide practice.

This is a ticket refund, and as such should have been handled by the retailer.

---

Valid tickets being considered invalid... feel like it happens all the time. More often due to broken electronic fare restrictions or routeing data. Other times, due to a poor understanding of fares and ticketing.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

A recent occasion I was travelling on a West Coast Avanti train and on showing my staff travel card was asked for photocard. I argued with the TTI that as retired staff we are exempt from carrying one.

This particular one should be fairly straightforward to resolve: why can't retired staff cards be endorsed with 'NO PHOTOCARD REQUIRED'?

 

[MarlowDonkey]

There hasn't been a report for a while of a longer distance off peak ticket being refused boarding at Paddington or Marylebone during the evening rush hour. . The archives of this site will contain a number. That's where the journey out of London is the second part of a longer trip starting before any peak restrictions. The announcements saying that off peak tickets are not valid on this train are unhelpful when they don't mention exceptions.

 

[duncombec]

Last year, I had a case of the guard telling me that my Network Railcard was only valid for my tickets, and not my friend's (who was accompanying me for the entire length of the journey, as required). When my response was "It was when I bought these tickets at the ticket office ten minutes ago" he backtracked, along the lines of "Oh, yeah, is that a network card... yeah, umm, that's fine".

It may have been a stretch reasonably well known for fare-dodging, but that wasn't really an excuse for the accusation first and the actually checking what railcard it was later... or thinking he'd caught me out, whichever was true.

 

[LordFlashheart]

There hasn't been a report for a while of a longer distance off peak ticket being refused boarding at Paddington or Marylebone during the evening rush hour. . The archives of this site will contain a number. That's where the journey out of London is the second part of a longer trip starting before any peak restrictions. The announcements saying that off peak tickets are not valid on this train are unhelpful when they don't mention exceptions.

Always have the problem in reverse at Marylebone with the return portion of an off-peak return to the North West in the morning peak period. Barriers always reject, then the staff member will tell me it's not valid as its an off-peak ticket. When I point out it is valid, they open the gate!

Conversely going the other way the barrier occasionally rejects the ticket but have always (rightly) been let through without argument.

 

[trainmania100]

Platform tickets. I pay 10p to get on the platform to cop some phots, sir this isn't valid after being rejected by the gate line

 

[SuspectUsual]

Any number of occasions over the last ten years I'ved grief getting through the barriers at Manchester Victoria with an off peak return going back to Todmorden or Hebden Bridge. There’s an evening peak within Greater Manchester but not going out into West Yorkshire and hundreds of passengers make the journey each day, but the barriers always reject the ticket and the gateline staff always say “it’s peak time, come back later” or similar, and the grudgingly open the gates when reminded the evening peak doesn't apply outside Greater Manchester. For bonus points, quite often you'll get a "just this once" or "I shouldn't be letting you through" as well

 

[gladiac]

I have had a Scotrail Super Off Peak ticket refused once when arriving into Edinburgh early evening, the ticket examiner insisted it was a blanket restriction from 3-8pm when it is only for departing from the city centres - https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ticket-types/validity/h4. I had to buy an Off Peak Return but got that refunded by customer services.

 

[Furrysquid]

Had one or two interesting moments after my monthly season ticket changed from the green paper ones to a smartcard (west midlands swift card), especially given that the smartcards had absolutely nothing on them to say they were anything at all to do with the trains. The West Midlands-based staff knew what to do about said cards, but I had several "no, I need to see your actual ticket" moments on TFW services with shouty RPIs who had clearly never seen one before.

 

[Kieran_MF135]

In my experience I have had issues of here I been given false penalty fares or told my ticket not Vaild or accused of fare evasion


Advance ticket when going to station where station on route or destination not step free being refused exit or enter the station despite they aware of assistance booked and toc has provided taxi that is wheelchair accessible at there expense to get me to my destination saying that as I was either breaking or resuming my journey that the taxi didn't count despite the fact I explained. By the gateline

Even had gateline staff refuse an anytime day return ticket with 50% discount on a Saturday and Sunday as apparently it odd that I would use more expensive ticket then off peak day return and I couldn't prove Railcard for the 50% (it wheelchair discount if I stay in my chair my wheelchair is the proof)
And tried saying that as I have disbled Railcard it has to be off peak day return ticket with disbled Railcard discount as it cheaper

Example where it cheaper
GRV TO MDW
Off peak day return with disabled Railcard costs £8.30
Anytime day return with 50% discount. Costs £7.05

So sometimes the anytime day return is cheaper especially if traveling with companion or just on my own I use what ticket gives me the best price.


Been asked to provide a photocard for disabled Railcard that is Phycial Railcard.

Told that can't use disabled Railcard before certain time.

Had staff refuse my mate who was travelling with using either my Railcard discount or 50% anytime return ticket as he was my companion and on both discount entitled to I can either travel solo or with companion provoided they are with me for whole journey same Train I'm on.

 

[trainJam]

Worcester - GWR Revenue Blockade

Family Railcard 1 adult 1 child (chfam).

RPI claims not valid because child (which was me) was 16 - but the railcard was bought when I was still 15.

See "Information" part of terms - it has a clear box around it.

Shrewsbury station staff claiming that the West Midlands Day Ranger is not valid to Gobowen. I don't know why I even asked them I suppose I was very scared back and even more so socially anxious back then.

Several instances of being told my ticket had the wrong date - human mistakes for them I guess.

Related - PlusBus gets a plethora of responses from bus drivers.

On the other hand, I remember a good moment when my off-peak ticket to somewhere on the snow hill lines was rejected in the evening peak at Birmingham New St Avanti gate line but the staff correctly let me through as the evening peak restriction did not apply on my ticket.