Advice re Anytime Fare charged for travelling on the wrong train on an Advance ticket

[richandmich]

My wife, two kids and nephew were travelling back from Hull to Stevenage. Tickets were bought online, as usual (we travel to Hull and Newcastle a lot because our elderly parents live there).

They get off at York to change. My wife asks a staff member which platform is for Stevenage trains and he points her to a platform and tells her the train for Kings Cross via Stevenage will be in shortly. She could not find the time of the train on the vast number of tickets, seat reservations and receipts in her East Coast paper wallet, so she asked the guard when the next train arrives in Stevenage (she couldn't remember when their connecting train departs, but she knew it arrived in Stevenage at about 8.20pm because that was the time I was meeting them in.) "8.20", he says. They rush over the bridge, get on the train, go to their reserved seats.

After an hour or so a ticket inspector appears and tells her they are on the wrong train. They have no valid tickets for this train. Guard exercises no discretion. Charges £300. The train, which was almost empty, arrived in Stevenage 3 minutes before the train on which they were booked.

East Coast Trains hand the recovery to a revenue protection service, to whom we appealed without success. Neither East Coast nor the agency will enter into dialogue.

She bought tickets for nearly £200, then mistakenly got on the wrong train, gaining no benefit bar getting into Stevenage three minutes early.

Passengers are human and do make mistakes. East Coast are penalising her for being human, not for intent or for gaining any benefit.

Do we have a way through this? I can't afford to pay the Anytime fare.

 

[island]

Legally speaking, no. Substantial reductions are offered for Advance tickets, in return for which the passenger must travel on the exact train booked. It is the passenger's responsibility to travel on the right train, irrespective of how many old tickets they're carrying.

East Coast has been known to show discretion via its customer services department, but IRCAS or IPFAS or whoever they're called won't.

 

[Cheshire Rover]

My wife, two kids and nephew were travelling back from Hull to Stevenage. Tickets were bought online, as usual (we travel to Hull and Newcastle a lot because our elderly parents live there).

They get off at York to change. My wife asks a staff member which platform is for Stevenage trains and he points her to a platform and tells her the train for Kings Cross via Stevenage will be in shortly. She could not find the time of the train on the vast number of tickets, seat reservations and receipts in her East Coast paper wallet, so she asked the guard when the next train arrives in Stevenage (she couldn't remember when their connecting train departs, but she knew it arrived in Stevenage at about 8.20pm because that was the time I was meeting them in.) "8.20", he says. They rush over the bridge, get on the train, go to their reserved seats.

After an hour or so a ticket inspector appears and tells her they are on the wrong train. They have no valid tickets for this train. Guard exercises no discretion. Charges £300. The train, which was almost empty, arrived in Stevenage 3 minutes before the train on which they were booked.

East Coast Trains hand the recovery to a revenue protection service, to whom we appealed without success. Neither East Coast nor the agency will enter into dialogue.

She bought tickets for nearly £200, then mistakenly got on the wrong train, gaining no benefit bar getting into Stevenage three minutes early.

Passengers are human and do make mistakes. East Coast are penalising her for being human, not for intent or for gaining any benefit.

Do we have a way through this? I can't afford to pay the Anytime fare.

I am only a humble fellow passenger but I believe that the rules for the use of Advance tickets are absolutely clear and you have no chance of getting a refund.

 

[Urban Gateline]

Not much chance of a refund, but you could try to appeal to the sympathy of East Coast about the whole situation.

As others said, Advance tickets have strict terms, and there are not THAT many coupons that any normal person wouldn't be able to check them all, which takes maximum One minute!

Why should discretion be shown? Maybe if she had checked with the Guard before boarding, but this situation was her own doing I'm afraid, it's probably a lesson well learnt and she will not get it wrong next time!

 

[soil]

"She could not find the time of the train on the vast number of tickets, seat reservations and receipts in her East Coast paper wallet"

Unfortunately that is her responsibility when buying and using these tickets.

It looks like you had a reservation on the 18:55, arriving 20:23, but instead caught the 18:29, arriving 20:20. I guess you had a full hour on the train from Hull to check your tickets and connection time.

Not much sympathy I'm afraid.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Incidentally the fully flexible ticket would not have cost much more than £200 for 2 adults + 2 children in the first place.

 

[Flamingo]

Some sympathy, but your only hope is throwing yourself on the mercy of the Customer Services department and pointing out to them that you were not exactly gaining anything from the different train, it was a genuine mistake, and pleading that next time you will be more careful.

ALWAYS do the math when using Advance tickets, as especially on return journeys they may not be significantly cheaper than flexible tickets, with a lot more complications when it goes wrong. Discounts on flexible tickets with things like Family Railcards or Group tickets (depending on TOC) are always an option worth exploring.

 

[neilmc]

One for the Daily Mail surely, especially as there's children involved and you didn't actually save any time, deliberately use the wrong train or fail to arrive at the station in time for the right one.

Even if you don't get anything back you should try your best to get the TOC a good kicking, this is disgraceful customer service.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

One for the Daily Mail surely, especially as there's children involved and you didn't actually save any time, deliberately use the wrong train or fail to arrive at the station in time for the right one.

Even if you don't get anything back you should try your best to get the TOC a good kicking, this is disgraceful customer service.

A can not see why this is disgraceful customer service at all?

Finding out which train you need to be on, and then getting to the right platform at the right time is not a difficult task at York station - there are numerous clear information screens and not that many platforms to choose from.

The only thing I can see as being a grounds for an appeal to East Coast's better nature is the 3 minute difference in arrival time at Stevenage, and hence no real gain from catching the earlier train. They might relent, they might not - but if they don't it is not "disgraceful customer service" at all - it is enforcing the fairly clear and simple conditions of a cheap ticket.

I like what the Ryanair boss said this week regarding a very similar situation (passenger buys cheap plain tickets with a cheap airline, books the tickets knowing the conditions attached, but then fails to comply with those conditions)...

..The outspoken chief executive said passengers who arrive for flights without a pass are ‘stupid’ and it is right they are charged £60 a time to have one printed at the check-in desk because it is their ‘**** up’.

His remarks came after passenger Suzy McLeod was forced to pay £236 to print boarding passes for herself, her parents, and her two children so they could fly home to Britain from Alicante, Spain.

Mr O’Leary said: ‘Mother pays £200 for being an idiot and failing to comply with her agreement at the time of booking. ...

Mrs McLeod, 35, from Newbury, Berkshire, criticised Ryanair’s rule and said she was unable to print her family’s passes while they were in Spain for 15 days last month.
...
She was backed by more than 350,000 Facebook users after complaining of her ‘unfair’ treatment by the Irish no-frills airline, which has been frequently criticised for its extra charges.

But Mr O’Leary said she should have printed the passes at an internet cafe or asked a friend to print and fax them to her.

Instead, he said, ‘she then comes home and gets on Twitter, God help us all, and somehow we are going to change our policies. No, we’re not’.

He said Mrs McLeod, who was staying at a rural villa without internet access, had written to him last week to ask for ‘compensation and a gesture of goodwill’.

Mr O’Leary, 51, said the airline has replied, ‘politely but firmly’, saying: ‘Thank you Mrs McLeod, but it was your **** up.’

He admitted she was not alone in complaining about the rule, but said the 0.02 per cent of his passengers, which equates to 15,800 of its 79million, who do not print off passes every year should ‘b***** off’

Now that is my kind of customer service department!

(dons hat and runs for cover...)

 

[Ferret]

Now that is my kind of customer service department!

(dons hat and runs for cover...)

I detest Ryanair, but that woman has no grounds for complaint. Most people manage to follow the terms and conditions; why should there be an exception for the one who is incapable?!

Going back to the OP, it was harsh, and I'd probably not have followed the same course of action as a Guard myself, but then that puts me in the wrong for not doing my job correctly. No valid ticket was held for the train, therefore new tickets were needed. The East Coast man followed the letter of the law, as is his right. You could write to East Coast Customer Services to see what they say. After all, they can only tell you to clear off, and there have been cases of them exercising discretion in the past, most notably the Professor at Durham travelling short on an Advance.

 

[34D]

Some sympathy, but your only hope is throwing yourself on the mercy of the Customer Services department and pointing out to them that you were not exactly gaining anything from the different train, it was a genuine mistake, and pleading that next time you will be more careful.

Well not just a mistake, but if you read the OP a staff member at York told them to get on that train!

 

[Ferret]

Well not just a mistake, but if you read the OP a staff member at York told them to get on that train!

Ah yes, the mythical man on the platform said...!

The problem I suspect here, is that the conversation went:

Passenger : 'Where does the Stevenage train leave from?'
Platform staff : 'The next one is from Platform 9'
Passenger : 'Thanks very much'

The onus is on the passenger to make sure they ask the right question, otherwise you'll get the wrong answer. Although, a 300 quid bill for that is a bit harsh in my opinion!

 

[Solent&Wessex]

They get off at York to change. My wife asks a staff member which platform is for Stevenage trains and he points her to a platform and tells her the train for Kings Cross via Stevenage will be in shortly. She could not find the time of the train on the vast number of tickets, seat reservations and receipts in her East Coast paper wallet, so she asked the guard when the next train arrives in Stevenage (she couldn't remember when their connecting train departs, but she knew it arrived in Stevenage at about 8.20pm because that was the time I was meeting them in.) "8.20", he says. They rush over the bridge, get on the train, go to their reserved seats.

This paragraph gives a few clues.

a) It sounds very much like the question was "where does the Stevenage train go from?".

b) If they went to their reserved seats then they would have seen the train time they should be on. The information is on the same coupon, and the train time is about 1/2 inch away, possibly less, from the seat number.

 

[CompactDstrxion]

I detest Ryanair, but that woman has no grounds for complaint. Most people manage to follow the terms and conditions; why should there be an exception for the one who is incapable?!

It's a bit rich of O'Leary to pretend he doesn't want passengers to make these errors when his business plan depends on customers getting caught by their additional fees, the most obvious being the card fee unless you use Ryanair's own prepaid card.

 

[Ferret]

Legally speaking, no. Substantial reductions are offered for Advance tickets, in return for which the passenger must travel on the exact train booked. It is the passenger's responsibility to travel on the right train, irrespective of how many old tickets they're carrying.

East Coast has been known to show discretion via its customer services department, but IRCAS or IPFAS or whoever they're called won't.

Hmmmm, one thing I've just picked up on from the OP is that this matter may well be quite advanced - he says the debt recovery people won't enter into correspondance about it. As far as they are concerned, the UFNs appear to have been correctly issued, so they will now proceed to recover the debt. Now, if the OP is still here and reading this, I cannot stress enough the urgency with which you need to deal with this matter.

The risk is that this progresses into a Byelaw 18 prosecution, which will then add a Court fine to the already large cost of the mistake at York.

Ultimately, I'd want to talk to East Coast Customer Services by telephone to see if they are prepared to drop the matter on the grounds of an innocent mistake, and as the OP said - no intent to gain any benefit. That will be at East Coast's discretion. If they decline to drop the matter, then I'd say that paying the UFN would be the safest option.

 

[island]

One for the Daily Mail surely, especially as there's children involved and you didn't actually save any time, deliberately use the wrong train or fail to arrive at the station in time for the right one.

Even if you don't get anything back you should try your best to get the TOC a good kicking, this is disgraceful customer service.

Rubbish. There is a spectrum of customer service from good to bad. This is squarely in the middle. It would be bad customer service to all the other thousands of East Coast passengers who that day chose to take an extra few minutes to sort themselves out and get on the train they were genuinely meant to be on if they let the OP's party off.

This paragraph gives a few clues.

a) It sounds very much like the question was "where does the Stevenage train go from?".

b) If they went to their reserved seats then they would have seen the train time they should be on. The information is on the same coupon, and the train time is about 1/2 inch away, possibly less, from the seat number.

Part b is something I was going to post yesterday but didn't have time. If they were able to find the reserved seats (and didn't realise their mistake when the seat reservation tickets didn't match their journey details or were not there) then they could not but have seen "valid at 1855 on [date]" on the reservation coupons. I'm wondering if there isn't a bit more to this story, such as "we're here ahead of time, I'm sure there won't be any problem using the next train"...

 

[neilmc]

Rubbish. There is a spectrum of customer service from good to bad. This is squarely in the middle. It would be bad customer service to all the other thousands of East Coast passengers who that day chose to take an extra few minutes to sort themselves out and get on the train they were genuinely meant to be on if they let the OP's party off.

Part b is something I was going to post yesterday but didn't have time. If they were able to find the reserved seats (and didn't realise their mistake when the seat reservation tickets didn't match their journey details or were not there) then they could not but have seen "valid at 1855 on [date]" on the reservation coupons. I'm wondering if there isn't a bit more to this story, such as "we're here ahead of time, I'm sure there won't be any problem using the next train"...

I recently travelled on a Virgin train to London where another passenger had boarded the train twenty minutes prior to the one they should have been on - unfortunately this one went via Crewe and their booked train went via Stoke so there was no way they could have got off and rejoined the correct train. But the conductor said it didn't matter, after all the train was empty and they weren't trying to avoid paying a peak fare, it was clearly a mistake. Now THAT was good customer service, although of course she could have acted differently - but I didn't go up to the guard and say:

"Ooh, that's not fair, I took the trouble to make sure I caught the correct train, why couldn't he - that's showing bad customer service to me?"

Only an extremely anti-social and selfish person would think and act in such a way. The company suffered no loss, I suffered no loss, so where's the problem?

I think that the combination of factors in this case, if they are accurate, would be make it a very good case for another rail-bashing story and I believe we (we being the travelling public as a whole not just rail industry employees and transport geeks) NEED to keep on at such issues, which will at the very least force the TOC to recompense the passenegers or make a statement which will show them in a very bad light.

As for Michael O'Leary, IMO he's a totally unfit person to run an airline but remember that Ryanair are registered in Ireland not the UK, with everything implicit in that, and he just doesn't care.

 

[muttynut]

One for the Daily Mail surely, especially as there's children involved and you didn't actually save any time, deliberately use the wrong train or fail to arrive at the station in time for the right one.

Even if you don't get anything back you should try your best to get the TOC a good kicking, this is disgraceful customer service.

what a load of tosh .... its up to the passenger to get on the right train just like hundreds of others do every day



to be fair though atoc needs to make things a bit easier for people to understand their tickets maybe by printing the reservation on to the actual ticket instead of being separate like it is now thus cutting down the number of vouchers that seem to lead to confusion for people who cant read whats printed on them

 

[Ferret]

I recently travelled on a Virgin train to London where another passenger had boarded the train twenty minutes prior to the one they should have been on - unfortunately this one went via Crewe and their booked train went via Stoke so there was no way they could have got off and rejoined the correct train. But the conductor said it didn't matter, after all the train was empty and they weren't trying to avoid paying a peak fare, it was clearly a mistake. Now THAT was good customer service, although of course she could have acted differently - but I didn't go up to the guard and say:

"Ooh, that's not fair, I took the trouble to make sure I caught the correct train, why couldn't he - that's showing bad customer service to me?"

That was at the Guard's discretion. His decision. You cannot expect the Guard to show discretion every time - the secret is to follow the terms and conditions *which you agreed to* when the ticket was booked. Thousands and thousands of people manage that each day.

 

[island]

but remember that Ryanair are registered in Ireland not the UK, with everything implicit in that

What's that supposed to mean?

 

[Greenback]

I recently travelled on a Virgin train to London where another passenger had boarded the train twenty minutes prior to the one they should have been on - unfortunately this one went via Crewe and their booked train went via Stoke so there was no way they could have got off and rejoined the correct train. But the conductor said it didn't matter, after all the train was empty and they weren't trying to avoid paying a peak fare, it was clearly a mistake. Now THAT was good customer service, although of course she could have acted differently - but I didn't go up to the guard and say:

"Ooh, that's not fair, I took the trouble to make sure I caught the correct train, why couldn't he - that's showing bad customer service to me?"

Only an extremely anti-social and selfish person would think and act in such a way. The company suffered no loss, I suffered no loss, so where's the problem?

I think that the combination of factors in this case, if they are accurate, would be make it a very good case for another rail-bashing story and I believe we (we being the travelling public as a whole not just rail industry employees and transport geeks) NEED to keep on at such issues, which will at the very least force the TOC to recompense the passenegers or make a statement which will show them in a very bad light.

A guard showing discretion may be good customer service, but that does not mean that not showing discretion equals bad customer service. Discretion is not a right.

And please keep barbed references to othe rmembers out of your posts in future. It only undermines any points you are trying to make.

 

[Flamingo]

NEILMC At the risk of pointing out the obvious, the if you think through the logical conclusion to a "campagain against Advance Fares", it's result would be their removal. "Would Sir like to buy an Off-Peak or an Anytime ticket?"

 

[soil]

I don't see how anyone was misdirected.

 

[Greenback]

I don't see how anyone was misdirected.

I agree. I think that argument is a complete non starter.

But this thread illustrates so many unfortunate aspects of society today. Firstly, the high cost of walk up rail travel, and secondly the ability to threaten to use the power of the media to obtain refunds that people are not legally entitled to.

 

[thelongestroad]

There seems to be an impression that letting people off the conditions of their advance tickets is good customer service.

In reality leads to conflict for other members of staff when the expectation arises that the same will happen again on other trips in the future. Not to mention the fact that it devalues the product and undermines those passengers who pay the often greater price for open tickets or travel flexibility.

 

[island]

There seems to be an impression that letting people off the conditions of their advance tickets is good customer service.

In reality leads to conflict for other members of staff when the expectation arises that the same will happen again on other trips in the future. Not to mention the fact that it devalues the product and undermines those passengers who pay the often greater price for open tickets or travel flexibility.

Exactly!

 

[neilmc]

Exactly!

Ah, well there was the famous Durham professor, wasn't there? Doubtless he could at a pinch have paid the difference for stopping short as professors are usually reasonably paid, but he mustered his articulate resources and contacted the press and got let off.

Now there's a line in the sand; the TOC have seen fit to back down in the face of adverse publicity then, so maybe they're running scared of professors but hope that poor families off to visit granny don't have the resources, the influence, the sheer nous to mount a case for what they've been charged on top of the fare they've already paid (which admittedly is LEGAL but hardly MORAL).

If this goes out to a wider public than the kind of people who frequent this site who are admittedly knowledgeable but hardly the most sympathetic, and they bring in the granny in Stevenage and the teary-eyed kids who won't now get to see each other for months then you MIGHT get the £300 refunded, in any event the TOC WILL get a public kicking (even if it's not with any knowledge of the rail industry, does that matter?) even more so if they refuse to back down. What is there to lose, for the OP? But he has to initiate it himself and contact the press, if the professor had such public support imagine how much could be generated by this case!

 

[soil]

Oh yes, nice pics of the weeping kids and the granny looking sad and lonely on her own should do the trick, publicity-wise.

 

[ralphchadkirk]

Now there's a line in the sand; the TOC have seen fit to back down in the face of adverse publicity then, so maybe they're running scared of professors but hope that poor families off to visit granny don't have the resources, the influence, the sheer nous to mount a case for what they've been charged on top of the fare they've already paid (which admittedly is LEGAL but hardly MORAL).

Is it moral not to follow the rules you've already agreed to follow?

 

[exile]

Is it moral not to follow the rules you've already agreed to follow?

The TOC are morally entitled to charge an admin fee for the passenger changing arrangements but £300 is certainly a little steep. Same with Ryanair - £60 to print a document? Or indeed when the bank charges you £50 to inform you that you're overdrawn by 50p.

Bear in mind that if the TOC fails to fulfil its side of the contract it is generally only liable for the cost of the ticket (no consequential loss for example) and in any case is going to be a matter for the civil courts and never a criminal case - which in some cases the passenger can find themselves facing even with no criminal intent.

Interesting that I've just survived a recent debate where staff were claiming they have an absolute right to show discretion by allowing staff employed by other rail companies to travel for free. So how about similar discretion in cases like this?

 

[Stigy]

Legally speaking, no. Substantial reductions are offered for Advance tickets, in return for which the passenger must travel on the exact train booked. It is the passenger's responsibility to travel on the right train, irrespective of how many old tickets they're carrying.

East Coast has been known to show discretion via its customer services department, but IRCAS or IPFAS or whoever they're called won't.

If you bypass IRCAS or IPFAS, after having no success with an appeal, if you feel genuinely hard done by, the TOC sometimes looks at it at a more "customer friendly" perspective. Bear in mind this should all be done within the relevant time limits where PFNs and UFNs are concerned, otherwise they'll be escallated regardless.