London midland ticket machine horror story

Donny1234 · 26 Jul 2015

Can I ask anyone with inside knowledge what to do now?

My sons girlfriend bought an open return last week on their own website for travel from her house in Shrewsbury to visit my son in Lichfield tomorrow.
Whilst trying to collect the tickets from Shrewsbury station on Saturday the machine refused to give her one. Going to the window to see the chap he said. " sorry the ticket has been collected and that's it" . She returned to her parents and they both phoned LM on Sat at different times to be told the same thing and that as far as they were concerned case closed.
I have only found out all this on returning from holiday today (sun)
As far as I see LM have either a machine or software problem and they are trying to hide the fact. The ticket has not been picked up, they refuse to print her another one it seems to be beyond their ability to find out that she is telling the truth in this case.
If I phone them tomorrow morning (Monday) how do I go about getting them to either reimburse her or print her a new ticket. As far as I can see they are committing an act of fraud.

RailUK Forums

tony6499 · 26 Jul 2015

Couldn't you raise a dispute with your bank ? Might be better than banging your head against a brick wall

yorkie · 26 Jul 2015

If LM are refusing to co-operate, then cancel the payment with your bank (did you pay by credit card or debit card? If the former, that potentially makes things easier) and refer the matter to Transport Focus.

BHXDMT · 26 Jul 2015

Donny1234 said:
As far as I see LM have either a machine or software problem and they are trying to hide the fact.

Shrewsbury station and its ticket office/machines are managed by Arriva Trains Wales.

Can't help you with the rest, I'll let those in the know comment.

First class · 26 Jul 2015

For chuckled, perhaps you would like to explain how London Midland are committing fraud, or is that just a libellous remark?

99% of these cases will be customer error, and if the tickets are showing as collected, your story does not add up at all.

If the self service machine attempted to issue and got stuck half way through (for example), then LM would reimburse you- but if the machine refused to issue the ticket entirely, and the booking office confirmed already collected, then it is normally down to the customer- either they have a security breach and someone has obtained your tickets frauduently or they were collected by someone else. (Or you are using an old booking reference).

London Midland will be able to identify the exact time, date and machinr which issued the ticket- if it doesnt match with the Shrewsbury one then they cannot help.

A bank will refuse the chargeback if London Midland prove that the ticket was collected.

DaleCooper · 26 Jul 2015

One important fact is missing, was payment actually made before the the TVM refused to issue the ticket or did the TVM not allow the transaction at all? I don't wish to come across as my usual cynical self but this needs clarifying.

yorkie · 26 Jul 2015

DaleCooper said:
One important fact is missing, was payment actually made before the the TVM refused to issue the ticket or did the TVM not allow the transaction at all? I don't wish to come across as my usual cynical self but this needs clarifying.

The tickets were bought online, according to the OP.

DaleCooper · 26 Jul 2015

yorkie said:
The tickets were bought online, according to the OP.

Sorry, I do feel daft.

maniacmartin · 26 Jul 2015

One possibility is that the tickets have not gone down the chute into the collection tray and have fallen into the back of the machine. I've seen this happen before with some models of ticket machine and would have expected station staff to open the machine and check fo this in a dispute like this

yorkie · 26 Jul 2015

maniacmartin said:
One possibility is that the tickets have not gone down the chute into the collection tray and have fallen into the back of the machine. I've seen this happen before with some models of ticket machine and would have expected station staff to open the machine and check fo this in a dispute like this

Agreed. There are various things that can go wrong.

KeithP · 26 Jul 2015

collector said:
A bank will refuse the chargeback if London Midland prove that the ticket was collected.

And reasonably so.

But the train company does need that proof.

najaB · 26 Jul 2015

KeithP said:
And reasonably so.

But the train company does need that proof.

Bear in mind though that the ticket need only have been printed, not necessarily collected by the OP's potential daughter in law.

anme · 27 Jul 2015

maniacmartin said:
One possibility is that the tickets have not gone down the chute into the collection tray and have fallen into the back of the machine. I've seen this happen before with some models of ticket machine and would have expected station staff to open the machine and check fo this in a dispute like this

Exactly this has happened to me. A staff member had to open the machine to retrieve the ticket. Did staff make any efforts like this?

causton · 27 Jul 2015

Indeed. For this reason I would not use any of the Shere machines unless I desperately had to, as there is a problem with these not giving you tickets once they are printed. Unforunately these are the useful ones which let you buy tickets from other stations (the ones you see on the Southern network mostly!) but the problem seems to only affect the tiny credit card only ones. If it's a big one that takes cash as well it seems to not have the same problem.

If it was a S+B machine the internal count of tickets left can become out of sync with what the actual number of tickets is (because it is typed in by hand when the ticket stock is loaded) and the machine could be printing tickets it does not have from one of the ticket rolls. Or the ticket could be stuck in the magnetiser or printing mechanism.

If the staff member did not even open up the machine and dismiss your query they are not very good at their job! Whether it is due to laziness or "The system says it's printed so it must be printed" I do not know! But I assume the station staff would be ATW, but not that familiar with Shrewsbury station so can't remember...

Bletchleyite · 27 Jul 2015

It happened to a friend on a Scheidt and Bachmann machine. So they are all not fit for purpose, it seems.

causton · 27 Jul 2015

Neil Williams said:
It happened to a friend on a Scheidt and Bachmann machine. So they are all not fit for purpose, it seems.

As long as you have staff who know what they're doing (i.e. replace the ticket rolls before they run out, and don't type in they've put in 5000 tickets when they've put in a roll of 3000) it's okay! Mostly... Much more commonly is people getting money stuck in the machine than the tickets not printing. And even then the money getting stuck is once a week at most?

gray1404 · 27 Jul 2015

I think you have to make a complaint to London Midland. I would personally do this in writing. If you are not happy with their reply, as Yorkie said, you can go to Transport Focus.

You can also dispute the matter with the bank for the card you used to pay for the ticket on the basis: you didn't not receive the ticket you paid for."

What exactly happened at the station? Did they look in the TVM too? If not, you've grounds for complaining to Arriva Trains Wales. Checking the co,puter record and the actual TVM is needed I feel. We do need more info though from your friend. Did it say it was printing the ticket but didn't? Or perhaps it was collected already (LM will be able to tell you where and when it is recorded as collected already).

cookie365 · 27 Jul 2015

causton said:
As long as you have staff who know what they're doing (i.e. replace the ticket rolls before they run out, and don't type in they've put in 5000 tickets when they've put in a roll of 3000) it's okay! Mostly... Much more commonly is people getting money stuck in the machine than the tickets not printing. And even then the money getting stuck is once a week at most?

Seriously? The machines can't even monitor when the rolls run out? They don't have a way to check that the printed ticket has passed into the collection tray?

Bletchleyite · 27 Jul 2015

cookie365 said:
Seriously? The machines can't even monitor when the rolls run out? They don't have a way to check that the printed ticket has passed into the collection tray?

That is why I call "not fit for purpose". Cheap[1] and nasty design.

[1] All the worse given that they *aren't* cheap.

bb21 · 27 Jul 2015

Posts on proposed solutions have been moved to this thread.

RPI · 28 Jul 2015

maniacmartin said:
One possibility is that the tickets have not gone down the chute into the collection tray and have fallen into the back of the machine. I've seen this happen before with some models of ticket machine and would have expected station staff to open the machine and check fo this in a dispute like this

from what I recall the TVM at Shrewsbury is an S&B one which dont suffer from this problem (but do suffer from many other problems!)

causton · 28 Jul 2015

cookie365 said:
Seriously? The machines can't even monitor when the rolls run out? They don't have a way to check that the printed ticket has passed into the collection tray?

Not in the models we have as far as I can tell, you type in you've put in a roll of 3000 tickets and it goes "ok, I shall tell them I have run out when 3000 tickets have printed"!

Camden · 28 Jul 2015

If it's a machine, it can go wrong.

Railway staff should never just hold their hands up and say "computer says no".

causton · 28 Jul 2015

Camden said:
If it's a machine, it can go wrong.

Railway staff should never just hold their hands up and say "computer says no".

Indeed, they (we!) should not, for example the tickets can be reprinted, I have before called up Trainline and had them issue a new ToD code as the computer said the tickets had been picked up but they did not have it, so there are workarounds!

London midland ticket machine horror story

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