BBC News - Train firm c2c overcharges on London-Essex route

[Nunners]

Train firm c2c overcharges on London-Essex route

Train firm c2c says incorrect fares were loaded into its ticketing system causing overcharging.

www.bbc.co.uk

An "error" has led to incorrect fares data being fed into the system.

Could these be the prices for the March fares increase?

 

[chris11256]

What gripes as a regular user(and from talking to commuters) is how on earth they've taken four whole days to fix this. Guaranteed if prices had been reduced it would've been fixed within hours/

 

[Nunners]

What gripes as a regular user(and from talking to commuters) is how on earth they've taken four whole days to fix this. Guaranteed if prices had been reduced it would've been fixed within hours/

Yes, you would have thought they could have just restored an earlier version of the website / database pretty easily

 

[ABB125]

Yes, you would have thought they could have just restored an earlier version of the website / database pretty easily

Why not simply stop selling any of the tickets that are being incorrectly charged, that'll work nicely! Penalty fares all round for those who are unable to purchase a ticket as a result...

 

[telstarbox]

What gripes as a regular user(and from talking to commuters) is how on earth they've taken four whole days to fix this. Guaranteed if prices had been reduced it would've been fixed within hours/

You would be surprised

 

[alistairlees]

I wonder if Avanti West Coast - also using Pico4uk - is overcharging too?

 

[Hadders]

I wonder if Avanti West Coast - also using Pico4uk - is overcharging too?

Agree - it's an awful booking engine.

Is it clear whether the overcharge occurred on their website, TVMs or ticket offices? The BBC News article says they are not going to automatically refund customers which is absolutely unacceptable if the overcharge has occurred via their website. They would be able to identify the affected customers and make amends. Not do do so is a disgrace.

To be fair this probably wouldn't be possible for sales made through a TVM or ticket office as no customer details are held.

 

[alistairlees]

I wonder if Avanti West Coast - also using Pico4uk - is overcharging too?

Guess what, the Avanti website is also overcharging for an Anytime Day Single from Shoeburyness to Fenchurch Street tomorrow (charging £14.70 instead of £14.20).

 

[DelayRepay]

To be fair this probably wouldn't be possible for sales made through a TVM or ticket office as no customer details are held.

Wouldn't they be able to refund the over charge back to the payment card? This wouldn't help anyone who used cash, RTVs etc but I bet non-card payments are a very small proportion these days.

 

[chris11256]

Just brought todays ticket and it still hasn’t been fixed. £13.35 for a Thorpe Bay - West Ham return with railcard opposed to £12.90 normally.

 

[mikeg]

Pico4uk is so awful. I tried booking an any permitted day return from Northallerton to York on the website a year or so ago because amex cashback. It insisted on selling me a tpe only single and an any permitted single as it couldn't comprehend I wanted to travel tpe outward and LNER return. Seemed unable to mix and match the two with an any permitted return.

Oddly the app behaved it was just the website.

How this pile of junk got accredited is beyond me. I guess money talks.

 

[Hadders]

Wouldn't they be able to refund the over charge back to the payment card? This wouldn't help anyone who used cash, RTVs etc but I bet non-card payments are a very small proportion these days.

It's not my area of expertise but I don't believe retailers have access to payment card details. It's all encrypted. The same would apply to website purchases but at least with those you need an account and so c2c could contact the affected customers, or give them an evoucher for the difference.

Perhaps another remedy could be for c2c to be prevented from applying the forthcoming fares increase for a period of time....

 

[3rd rail land]

What gripes as a regular user(and from talking to commuters) is how on earth they've taken four whole days to fix this. Guaranteed if prices had been reduced it would've been fixed within hours/

I work in IT and something like this can absolutely be reversed quite quickly using a snapshot/backup/whatever. What they will now do is invite people who have been overcharged to apply for a refund of the overpayment and hope many don't bother. In fact they know many won't bother claiming back the overpayment. I hope C2C are hit with a large fine for this debacle but I very much doubt that will happen. They will get away with it as if nothing ever happened.

 

[AlterEgo]

I work in IT and something like this can absolutely be reversed quite quickly using a snapshot/backup/whatever. What they will now do is invite people who have been overcharged to apply for a refund of the overpayment and hope many don't bother. In fact they know many won't bother claiming back the overpayment. I hope C2C are hit with a large fine for this debacle but I very much doubt that will happen. They will get away with it as if nothing ever happened.

It's probably important to remember that the railways are de facto nationalised, so penalising train companies financially has almost no effect whatsoever save for putting an imposition on the fare- or tax-payer in the future.

If c2c are "making money" it goes to Her Majesty's Government as part of the terms of the National Rail Contract. It is not a franchise any more but more of a concession operation. The main remedy open to HMG is through the Operational Performance part of the contract and I don't see how a single error at a back office would, in isolation anyway, be a breach of this.

 

[Haywain]

It's not my area of expertise but I don't believe retailers have access to payment card details. It's all encrypted. The same would apply to website purchases but at least with those you need an account and so c2c could contact the affected customers, or give them an evoucher for the difference.

I don't know the technicalities but a refund would automatically go back to the same card, so there shouldn't be any obstacle of the nature you suggest to applying partial refunds.

 

[nickswift99]

I don't know the technicalities but a refund would automatically go back to the same card, so there shouldn't be any obstacle of the nature you suggest to applying partial refunds.

Retailers always have a transaction ID which is provided by the payment processor/acquirer. They can use this at a later point to provide full or partial refunds.

The issue will be whether they have any mechanism to support partial refunds or any way to do this at scale.

 

[Hadders]

I don't know the technicalities but a refund would automatically go back to the same card, so there shouldn't be any obstacle of the nature you suggest to applying partial refunds.

Then they absolutely should be automatically refunding passengers who paid by card.

 

[Haywain]

Then they absolutely should be automatically refunding passengers who paid by card.

Please note that I said no obstacle of the type you suggested. There may well be other obstacles. Not that they shouldn’t be looking to do it.

 

[alistairlees]

They are still charging the wrong fares.

See https://www.c2c-online.co.uk/media-centre/latest-news/ticket-pricing-incident-9-february/ for an update:

Ticket pricing incident 9 February​

Due to a systems problem, some fares have displaying in the c2c ticketing system incorrectly.

We apologise for any issues this has caused and would like to refund you, if you have been affected.

The team are working hard with our supplier to fix the issue and to ensure customers who purchased tickets during the affected dates between Saturday 5 February and Wednesday 9 February are charged the correct fare. We expect to have the issue resolved soon.

If you purchased a c2c ticket between Saturday 5 February and Wednesday 9 February, which unexpectedly increased in price, you should contact the customer relations team who can investigate and arrange a refund. Generally, Oyster and Contactless (Pay as You Go) fares in addition to Travelcards purchased within the London Travelcard zone are not affected.

Please email [email protected] with a copy of your ticket (or proof of purchase). If you can also include a brief description of how your ticket was incorrectly priced and the date when you purchased it, the information will help the team resolve your issue quickly.

 

[robbeech]

I don't know the technicalities but a refund would automatically go back to the same card, so there shouldn't be any obstacle of the nature you suggest to applying partial refunds.

There is one particular obstacle that you may have overlooked. The Railway.

 

[Haywain]

There is one particular obstacle that you may have overlooked. The Railway.

I was looking at technological obstacles. The company have proved by their public messaging that they are not taking this as a serious matter which they should be taking a lead in resolving.

 

[_toommm_]

They are still charging the wrong fares.

See https://www.c2c-online.co.uk/media-centre/latest-news/ticket-pricing-incident-9-february/ for an update:

I think it’s appalling that the customer has to go out of their way to not only email all of that, but then find out what they should have been charged. As C2C are at fault, they should be the ones calculating how much they’ve overcharged their passengers.