Are the RMT lying? Also what about people who tweeted Merseyrail claiming to have been overcharged?There was never any instructions to refuse sale of normal tickets as far as I can see.
Merseyrail thoroughly deserve criticism for multiple instances of poor behaviour, however I do not think it is "this forum" (whatever that means) making this up!This is just this forum being overly keen to criticise Merseyrail, and they have been overcharging racegoers like this for years.
This is based on an RMT press release and real reports from passengers who were unexpectedly charged higher than normal fares. Merseyrail have declined to answer questions which could have clarified matters.
So, Merseyrail are overcharging people from Aintree only, and that's okay and doesn't deserve to be called out?The only possible exception might be for passengers starting their journey at Aintree unless TVMs are available
Why don't Merseyrail make this clear?
So not just at Aintree, as claimed in the above post by @Mainline421?Having heard back, Merseyrail did this at their busiest stations across their network.
Sounds familiar; I recall the LTS franchise pre-printed Travelcards, in order to generate more revenue. I appreciate it's not exactly the same, but there are certain similarities!As explained earlier, they preprint thousands of these £6 ranger tickets and distribute them across their revenue protection teams and certain popular stations to get the queues down to a manageable level - cash only (hence the rounding to £6 instead of £5.95).
The main difference was LTS did so to divert money from other operators to their own pockets, whereas Merseyrail are diverting money from customers to themselves.
Therefore, given the way things work in this country, Merseyrail will probably get away with it, even though what they did was arguably worse.
Merseyrail have not been clear about this, which has resulted in people complaining about being overcharged.Bearing in mind, you're talking queues out of the door and round the block to get to certain ticket offices, most race goers happily hand over £6 to beat all that. Other than at a handful of stations, it would have been possible to join the queue and get a different ticket or pay by card, but I doubt most would be that patient, especially after a few drinks inside them!
Also, this doesn't quite line up with what RMT are saying? That said, RMT aren't the most reliable of sources!
There is no issue with Merseyrail doing this from those stations!At some stations, this fare was actually better value / cheaper than the usual fare, so would have been sold in preference anyway.
However the issue is that there are reports of people are being unexpectedly charged higher amounts than they should be charged for the journey they are making.
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