VTEC Website Refunds

jsmith300 · 10 Mar 2018

Is it me or does anyone else find the refund instructions on the VTEC website confusing?

On the refunds page, there are no instructions on how to get a refund if your train is cancelled and you have purchased a non-advance ticket on the VTEC website. Am I meant to return my tickets in the post or do I not need to bother? I've submitted a refund request through my online account but there were no instructions there on what I needed to do either.

https://www.virgintrainseastcoast.com/customer-service/refunds/

RailUK Forums

jsmith300 · 10 Mar 2018

On the same page there are instructions on how to claim if you can't travel. This details using your online account but then says "If you still have the ticket(s) you want refunded, you need to return these with the form." - what form?! and why do I need to fill a form out if I have filled the online form out in my account?

Romilly · 10 Mar 2018

If you bought the tickets through the VTEC website, the best of way of getting a refund is to go into your online account, find the record for your purchase of the particular ticket, and apply for a refund online. That is fairly straightforward.

Where I got caught out was not realising that VTEC's response to your refund request is found by scrolling down to the very end of the purchase record for the ticket being refunded. There you will find the reference for your request and, relevantly, its status: sometimes status is something interim like pending, or I have had cases where I have fairly quickly found that status is "approved for repayment" and I have had cases where status is something like "awaiting receipt of tickets". In that latter case, this is the only request you will get to send your tickets in - last time I looked, the VTEC Refunds team were in Crawley (not Cheltenham as I originally but mistakenly typed) but do remember to quote the repayment-request reference number. Once they have received the tickets then in my experience they update status again, hopefully to something like "payment requested".

route:oxford · 10 Mar 2018

jsmith300 said:
On the same page there are instructions on how to claim if you can't travel. This details using your online account but then says "If you still have the ticket(s) you want refunded, you need to return these with the form." - what form?! and why do I need to fill a form out if I have filled the online form out in my account?

In exactly the same position. I've downloaded the form that I found on a different page, but it just says to follow the instructions on the website for tickets purchased on East Coast.

Yesterday I spent 45 minutes in the queueing system for clarification when I had to give up.

Romilly · 10 Mar 2018

route:oxford said:
In exactly the same position. I've downloaded the form that I found on a different page, but it just says to follow the instructions on the website for tickets purchased on East Coast.

Yesterday I spent 45 minutes in the queueing system for clarification when I had to give up.

Hopefully #3 will give you the answer you need.

jsmith300 · 10 Mar 2018

Romilly said:
Hopefully #3 will give you the answer you need.

The address on the manual form gives a refunds team in Crawley so maybe they have moved.

route:oxford · 10 Mar 2018

Romilly said:
Hopefully #3 will give you the answer you need.

Not really. I did the online "cancel due to disruption" process on Friday & Sunday respectively. The wording on the website is conflicting, the form is worse. Next time, I won't risk picking up my tickets before the day of travel.

It's now 8 days since I clicked the button, the funds haven't recredited and there's been no feedback by email or text.

Fortunately I paid my Amex, and they are ruthless at recovering funds from failing companies who don't deliver services.

Starmill · 10 Mar 2018

route:oxford said:
Fortunately I paid my Amex, and they are ruthless at recovering funds from failing companies who don't deliver services.

While that's certainly a possibility, and they might be inclined help even more if you're what they think of as a 'valued customer' of theirs. But would they really chase this up for you? You've a contractual right to a refund on an unused ticket in these circumstances, there are no shades of grey and VTEC don't appear to be denying you. Then again, the fact that they can't get such a basic (and surely very common at the moment) procedure right is deeply worrying.

jsmith300 · 10 Mar 2018

I've had a refund processed that I submitted on Sunday evening which I hadn't collected.
I haven't had a refund processed for the one I submitted on the Wednesday prior, for which I had collected but haven't sent in because I wasn't told to.

Wallsendmag · 11 Mar 2018

You need to post your tickets in if you have collected them or had them sent.

jsmith300 · 11 Mar 2018

To where?

Wallsendmag · 11 Mar 2018

jsmith300 said:
To where?

The address is on the bottom of the refund form,
VirginTrains East Coast Refunds, PO BOX 1259, Crawley RH10 0JR

https://www.virgintrainseastcoast.com/globalassets/vtec972-refund-form---may-2017.v62.pdf

jsmith300 · 11 Mar 2018

I filled the online refunds form out in my account, why do I now need to fill out another form?

Wallsendmag · 11 Mar 2018

jsmith300 said:
I filled the online refunds form out in my account, why do I now need to fill out another form?

I don't think you need to but may be best to send a covering note.

Nick66 · 11 Mar 2018

Wallsendmag said:
You need to post your tickets in if you have collected them or had them sent.

What if you have an m-ticket? I have just had to change some bookings and sent two tickets in with a cover note quoting refund reference and the third was an m-ticket so I quoted the refund reference and the original ticket reference. Will that suffice? Not that I am probably in VTEC’s good books at the moment with 2 outstanding overdue Delay Repay claims....

alistairlees · 11 Mar 2018

Nick66 said:
What if you have an m-ticket? I have just had to change some bookings and sent two tickets in with a cover note quoting refund reference and the third was an m-ticket so I quoted the refund reference and the original ticket reference. Will that suffice? Not that I am probably in VTEC’s good books at the moment with 2 outstanding overdue Delay Repay claims....

If you have an m-ticket, eTicket or self print ticket then all you need to do is inform the retailer of your wish to get a refund; the barcode is then cancelled and will show as such (and as being refunded) on any scan at a gate or on a train. You can then be denied travel and (legitimately) asked to pay for a new ticket. These tickets may exist in multiple copies, so being asked to return them would obviously be pointless. So all the security is in the barcode.

If you have physical orange tickets, there is no unique data record of these, so the same process cannot be followed without risk of revenue loss, unless the tickets are physically returned before the refund is processed.

Nick66 · 11 Mar 2018

That all makes perfect sense but the m-ticket is still showing in my ticket wallet on the app or wouldn’t I be able to see that it had been cancelled?

alistairlees · 11 Mar 2018

Nick66 said:
That all makes perfect sense but the m-ticket is still showing in my ticket wallet on the app or wouldn’t I be able to see that it had been cancelled?

It would be better if it showed as cancelled, but that isn't something that can (yet) be easily done from a remote location. With iOS for example, it remains the phone user's choice to add (or remove) things from their wallet. I know that m-ticket is not the same though! (but am lacking in time right now)

Wallsendmag · 11 Mar 2018

Nick66 said:
That all makes perfect sense but the m-ticket is still showing in my ticket wallet on the app or wouldn’t I be able to see that it had been cancelled?

I believe it would be greyed out and unable to be activated.

Nick66 · 14 Mar 2018

The refund has just been confirmed and the m-ticket has disappeared from my ticket wallet

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