Delay Compensation. How long should I wait?

[Y Ddraig Coch]

Basically, I filed a compensation claim to Arriva Trains Wales for an outward and return delayed journey, 2hours outwards and 1 hour on the return.

The journey was made on the 3rd December, the claim made and logged with ATW on the 5th December.

The mail I got logging my claim stated,

"We aim to reply to all contact within 10 working days (excludes weekends and bank holidays); however we have recently received a higher volume of correspondence than usual. As a result it may take us up to 25 working days to provide you with a response. We thank you for your patience during this time and please be assured we are doing all we can to reply to all customers as quickly as possible."

Their website is now stating,

"If you have contacted us and haven't yet received a response, please be assured that we will be in touch with you as soon as we can. We aim to respond to correspondence within 10 working days; however during times of high demand we may not be able to reply as quickly as we would like.
We are currently handling cases received on the 26th to 30th of October.

If you have not heard from us, and you contacted us before the above dates, please call us on 03333 211 202. *

Updated: 17 January 2017."

So my question as on the phone they keep telling me to be patient is, how long should I wait? They say 10 days, risen to 25 days because of high volume, I am now way past both of these timescales in fact heading for double the already lengthy 25 day timescale and they are still only processing from October and my claim was made in December.

This makes me think I am in for a long wait. I am in no major hurry for the money, but when they themselves set timescales that they are clearly nowhere near fulfilling and in the age of automatic delay repay on some TOC, how long should I have to wait. Is there a body I can complain about the extremely slow processing time? Or should I do as they say and just be patient and believe "they will be in touch as SOON as they can?

 

[cuccir]

Although I can't comment on ATW, with other operators my experience is that getting things within 2 months is a decent result. I agree that it's rather shooting themselves in the foot to set an ambitious target and then fail to meet it

If you've not heard by, say, the start of February then it may be worth calling them as claims can get forgotten, or settled but not sent out, but at the moment clearly they're behind.

You can write to Transport Focus, though their powers are limited. Still, if a sufficient number of people did write to them then it might get this issue raised in priority.

 

[boxy321]

I had a delay on Dec 22nd when everything went to pot from Euston.

Got an automatic email from Virgin the following day, then nothing. I asked and they mentioned an £8.50 payment for a 30 minute delay on the 23rd. I said no, the delay was 90+ minutes, Euston was in chaos, 1st got declassified, and Brum passengers were advised to use their tickets on Chiltern. This is now with customer services.

The repayment delay seems deliberate to make people give up and forget about it, as is sending cheques for a few quid through the post, expecting us to throw them away rather make a journey to the bank.

Regarding the above journey, I had a gut feeling I wouldn't get the full refund I expected, and mentioned this straight away to them.

 

[Master29]

I claimed for a non running journey on October 13th last year and only got the refund 2 weeks ago so it may just be a case of a backlog of claims. That was with GWR however.

 

[Kingsman]

See the thread "Sept. GWR delay-repay claim, first response Dec."

 

[Y Ddraig Coch]

Just thought I would follow up. Following my ATW delay claim back on December 5th I have this week received the delay payment into my bank (only just over 4 months later)

I also received a £10.00 travel voucher on top of the cash for the inconvenience and delay.

Better late than never.... I suppose!