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Collecting pre-paid tickets from East Coast FastTicket machines

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transportphoto

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That is utterly ridiculous! Something needs to be done to get this changed.

TP
 

dave87016

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Ridiculous !!! surely if a passenger buys tickets and the machine fails to print them the pax shouldnt be have to fork out for another ticket especially as it says you cant claim refunds on the tickets not printed !!
 

bb21

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Anyone fancy writing a letter to East Coast?
 

IainH

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Unfair contract terms, I think. I wonder if their lawyers read this over. We let you down, but you have to pay more.
 

lyesbkz

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If you have a problem collecting your TOD from an East Coast FAST machine then the travel centre will not help you - they will only sell you another ticket. Seems harsh.

That's not how I read the page.

My interpretation is “from 17 September 2012 you will always need to enter the Collection Reference when collecting tickets. If you don't bring the collection reference or your card, we won't print your tickets for you at the desk and it's your own fault”

I don't see it as “we won't help you if the machine is playing up”.

Perhaps it's worth asking for clarification.
 

Failed Unit

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Do any East Coast stations just have a single machine? Not working and you have a £100 AP no problem you now need to buy a £400 on through no fault of your own. I am not surprised by east coast on this. I bought a ticket and collected it a Scotrail station. It failed scotrail said the machine was fine, east coast said talk to Scotrail. Passenger focus said pay up east coast as the contract was with you and not Scotrail as the ticket was purchased via your website.
 

142094

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Do any East Coast stations just have a single machine? Not working and you have a £100 AP no problem you now need to buy a £400 on through no fault of your own. I am not surprised by east coast on this. I bought a ticket and collected it a Scotrail station. It failed scotrail said the machine was fine, east coast said talk to Scotrail. Passenger focus said pay up east coast as the contract was with you and not Scotrail as the ticket was purchased via your website.

Think they all have at least two, most have quite a few. However when the booking office is closed, there will only be one or two in the concourse or on the platforms, such as York or Darlington.
 

bolli

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That's not how I read the page.

My interpretation is “from 17 September 2012 you will always need to enter the Collection Reference when collecting tickets. If you don't bring the collection reference or your card, we won't print your tickets for you at the desk and it's your own fault”

I don't see it as “we won't help you if the machine is playing up”.

Perhaps it's worth asking for clarification.

I read it the same.

Its just badly phrased. :|
 

MikeWh

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That's not how I read the page.

My interpretation is “from 17 September 2012 you will always need to enter the Collection Reference when collecting tickets. If you don't bring the collection reference or your card, we won't print your tickets for you at the desk and it's your own fault”

I don't see it as “we won't help you if the machine is playing up”.

Perhaps it's worth asking for clarification.

I agree.
 

hairyhandedfool

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It is also worth noting it says they will not refund a ticket that was not printed, but there is nothing to say they will not refund a ticket bought in place of an unprinted ticket. Given you need to show a valid ticket whilst on the train I think it is sensible to point out that you would have to buy a new ticket, rather than let you discover it on the day of travel or potentially end up paying even more on the train.
 

DaveNewcastle

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. . . . there is nothing to say they will not refund a ticket bought in place of an unprinted ticket. Given you need to show a valid ticket whilst on the train I think it is sensible to point out that you would have to buy a new ticket, rather than let you discover it on the day of travel or potentially end up paying even more on the train.
Yes.
I do think that the wording is unhelpful.
In fact there are probably several other places in addition to this 'announcement' where it would be helpful to all parties if it was made clearer that the (counter-intuitive) solution to a ticketing difficulty is often to buy another ticket, which may be refundable.
The inexpert traveller wouldn't expect that, and and 'disclaimer' by a TOC, such as this from EC, only helps the TOC to sustain their own position - its regrettable that their wording doesn't offer proprtionate help to the passenger in difficulty with the same robustness.
 

blacknight

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Looks like this is going ahead in September as leaflets are now out on display.
So if anyone is booking tickets online & using a debit/credit card that is due to expire remember to retain card you made booking with until tickets have been collected & don't forget your 8 digit booking reference.
Opening hours of telephone number quoted in thread is given on East Coast website as Mon-Sat 0800-2000 & Sun 1000-2000
 

cjp

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East Coast have just sent me this today.

From 17 September 2012, collecting tickets from Fastticket self-service machines will be more secure. You will be able to print your tickets only if you have:

* The payment card used to buy your ticket. This will not be charged again.
* Your 8 character Customer Transaction Reference, given at the time of booking.

If you do not have your Customer Transaction Reference, you should contact the helpdesk for the website used to buy the ticket. For example if this was the East Coast website, please ring 08457 225 111.*

Travel Centre staff cannot print your ticket for you, only sell you another ticket.

Please note that you cannot reclaim the cost of any ticket you are unable to print from the Fastticket self-service machine if you do not have the booking reference and payment card.

*Calling an 0845 number costs 2p per minute during the day and 0.5p per minute at all other times when calling from a BT landline. Costs from other networks, including mobiles, may vary – please check with your service provider before you call.


It seems to me to be making things unnecessarily complicated unless they have evidence that someone has managed to type in several valid codes -which are an eight character mix of letters and numbers which to my mind is 36 to the power of eight combinations or 2,821,109,907,456 possible combinations - nearly three trillion possible combinations.

Assume that on any one day there are 250,000 tickets to be collected (a generous figure to my mind) then odds of guessing a "winning real ticket combination" is less than 1 in eleven million.

So why the change?
What if, as my friend recently did,you loose the debit card you used to buy the ticket before you can collect?
and is this
"Please note that you cannot reclaim the cost of any ticket you are unable to print from the Fastticket self-service machine if you do not have the booking reference and payment cars"
either fair or proper? Just even?

One of the pleasures of certain ticket machines is not having to remember which card I used.

East Coast seem to have made life more complicated for no good purpose with odds of 1 in 11,000,000 on their side.
 

cuccir

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Assume that on any one day there are 250,000 tickets to be collected (a generous figure to my mind) then odds of guessing a "winning real ticket combination" is less than 1 in eleven million.

East Coast seem to have made life more complicated for no good purpose with odds of 1 in 11,000,000 on their side.

I'd wager that people may well have found much easier ways of claiming others' tickets. People regularly note down codes on pieces of paper, which can be easily obtained if they're dropped, or by pick-pocketing people. While someone could still steal both a card and the code, it's much easier to grab a print-out or piece of paper hanging out of someone's bag, rather than a card/purse.

That said, I'm not a fan of the change: it seems unnecessarily inflexible that people who are mugged, robbed, or simply lose a debit/credit card 4 or 5 weeks before they travel, and cancel that card, can't arrange to collect the tickets in another way. Whether or not, in practice, staff would be able to overcome this restriction if someone turned up well in advance with a crime report number etc I'd be interested to know.
 

Bungle73

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You don't have to collect tickets on the day.

If you no longer have the card can't you just ring up EC and get them to sort it out?

Is there really a problem with people collecting others' tickets illegitimately? One thing that annoys me about collecting tickets is the long and complicated code you have to enter.
 

barrykas

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The only real changes from the current setup are that you'll always need to enter the reference number, regardless of whether it's the only booking to be collected, and if you forget to write it down, Ticket Office staff won't look it up on their TIS (mostly Tribute in East Coast's case) for you.

If you lose your card, you need to phone up the retailer and ask them to change the booking to allow collection with any card.
 

yorkie

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One of the pleasures of certain ticket machines is not having to remember which card I used.
Enjoy them while they last then as they should have been insisting on the correct card for years (since that Manchester scam).
What if, as my friend recently did,you loose the debit card you used to buy the ticket before you can collect?
If that happens, call Web Support.
 

yorkie

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LMGTFY ;) ..... ah, here you go:

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1015890_1m_ticket_scam_exposed


Manchester Evening News Reporter said:
'£1m' ticket scam exposed
September 10, 2007

A TRAIN ticket scam that is claimed to have netted villains £1m has been uncovered at Manchester's Piccadilly station.

Fraudsters were using stolen or cloned credit cards to buy tickets from the website thetrainline.com.

A team of 'runners' would then collect them from automatic fast ticket machines at the station.

They then sold the tickets on to passengers for cash at a discount....

There was a thread about it, but I can't find it now.

"tightening security procedures" meant no longer allowing any card to collect tickets. If you are aware of machines that still allow any card to be used, then that is surprising and a mistake.
 

yorkie

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Er Thanks Yorkie . . .


I did not know what LMGTFY was until I looked it up on duckduckgo.com
(so as to avoid being stupid and not knowing the obvious:oops:

"Cough Cough Splutter " Me stupid? "Cough Cough":oops:
Sorry, couldn't resist! ;) Maybe it should have been "Let me duck duck go that for you"!:p

Anyway, yes back on-topic, the change to insist on the same card came in around the time of that article, perhaps a few months later. I can't remember now.

But, providing the correct card was inserted, some machines (including East Coast operated ones) generally printed the tickets for you without you having to enter a code, but only if there was only one booking associated with that card. That's being phased out now.
 

cjp

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But, providing the correct card was inserted, some machines (including East Coast operated ones) generally printed the tickets for you without you having to enter a code, but only if there was only one booking associated with that card. That's being phased out now.
Interestingly the machine in Bicester ticket office, as best I recall (I have not used it for some months now) needs only the code to collect prepaid ticket, no card at all. The one on the platform wants both code and card before disgorging tickets
Perhaps Chiltern's customers behave better than those naughty people up in Manchester?
 

Butts

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Interestingly the machine in Bicester ticket office, as best I recall (I have not used it for some months now) needs only the code to collect prepaid ticket, no card at all. The one on the platform wants both code and card before disgorging tickets
Perhaps Chiltern's customers behave better than those naughty people up in Manchester?

I have always had to use the card and reference when collecting my tickets from the TVM at Falkirk Grahamston whether for bookings via EC or VT.
 

barrykas

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Interestingly the machine in Bicester ticket office, as best I recall (I have not used it for some months now) needs only the code to collect prepaid ticket, no card at all.

I find that implausible, given Shere (now part of Atos) FAST TVMs don't bring up the keyboard to enter the code unless you press "Collect" and then insert a card of some description.
 

cjp

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I find that implausible, given Shere (now part of Atos) FAST TVMs don't bring up the keyboard to enter the code unless you press "Collect" and then insert a card of some description.

Up for a challenge I will make a point in trying to find a need for ticket from that machine in the next couple of weeks and let you know if I am senile or not - of course if I am wrong in my recollection I will claim it has changed, was always like that in the past guv, etc ;)

Meanwhile I note that ticket machines ( according to the last Fares and Ticketing review) account for 17% of all ticket sales which is more than sales from on train staff and small ticket offices added together (5% and 9%). I expect to see many more machines although they are presently limited in what they can offer - especially advice
 

cjmillsnun

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Enjoy them while they last then as they should have been insisting on the correct card for years (since that Manchester scam).

This could be a problem for those with tickets bought by their workplace.

For example my workplace's travel desk books tickets through the trainline, but employees don't hold a company credit card. To collect tickets at the moment (admittedly at SWT stations), I have to put my own debit card in the machine, then enter the booking reference provided by the trainline.

If they require the payment card associated with the booking reference in the future, then I and many others who have tickets bought for them in that way will have problems.
 

yorkie

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Those transactions may have a 'flag' set to allow collection by any card, as they were bought from a business account.
 
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