GWR must have mellowed. They've previously compared an on-time arrival of the later train according to the working timetable with the public timetable arrival time of the earlier train that was missed. Cakeism railway style.
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Delay Repay claims rejected
- Thread starter yorkie
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No, I think that's exactly what they were doing though they refused to acknowledge or justify this point.
I don't think calculating delay in this way is reasonable, but at the very least if this is how they want to do it they need to include it on their web site on the list of common reasons that they reject people's claims.
But in this case the later train was actually late according to the passenger timetable too.
They claimed it was 1 minute early and gave me a link to prove their point. Only it didn't
And that's when they paid up.
I submitted a delay repay claim for my journey last Sunday. There was some line of overhead line failure at Twyford and the train arrived 15 minutes late into Tiverton Parkway. I got an email from trainline telling me to submit a claim. So I did. And GWR rejected it - saying it was not 15 minutes late. It was. And there is no place to upload the photo of THEIR OWN APP which said it arrived 15 minutes late or the email from thetrainline which said it was 15 minutes late. What are they? Judge, jury and executioner? I submitted an appeal but there is no place to upload any new information. This is bizarre. I actually live in Hong Kong (was in the UK for my mum's funeral) and pretty much every train I took was late. I thought at minimum they would honour their own terms and conditions.
trainophile
Established Member
Can you find your journey on Realtime trains?
Realtime Trains
Realtime Trains is an independent source of live realtime running information for the Great British railway network.
www.realtimetrains.co.uk
Bizarre and frustrating. And yes it's their rules...you can of course take it to the Ombudsman if GWR won't pay up but when I tried that once they told me that so long as GWR had followed their own internal guidlines then I had no claim...and they determined whether GWR had done so by asking GWR. Unless I could prove they didn't there was apparently nothing they could do.
Anyway if this goes like my recent claim did, once they reject a second time you'll be invited to complain to a Real Person. The only option to upload an image will be where they ask you to provide a copy of your ticket again (why?), but once you get a response to that you can reply by email with attachments. This was the point at which I was sent a link to a web site showing that the train had arrived "early"....except that the web site showed it arriving late...
It took me a week or so to get the first response, but my reply to that was dealt with quite quickly.
ServerHoster
Member
Northern has tried it on with me for the same reason (hourly service but all trains arrived 1-2 minutes early). In a nutshell
- journey was Ellesmere Port to Northwich on the evening of 25th July 2023
- Ellesmere Port to Helsby on the once per day evening train
- Helsby to Chester
- Chester to Northwich.
- train to Helsby did not turn up, showed as “on time” on National Rail website, no departure boards on the platform
- asked Northern twitter account, they ignored me for an hour.
- train finally rocks up 25 mins late, no one gets off, I am the only one getting on.
- again, Northern left me in the dark about this delay.
- missed connection from Helsby to Chester (and the onward connection to Northwich)
- got the next trains from Helsby and Chester an hour later.
- northern is only giving me one free single and not a free return because “I was only delayed 59 minutes”
- appealed and still lost
- contacted customer services exactly 7 days after appeal rejection and got this response:
“Thank you for contacting Northern,
I am contacting you in refence to your delay repay claim, I can see you were delayed by 59 minutes so you have received the correct compensation. Also if you want to appeal a claim you only have 28 days to appeal.
If you have any other questions please feel free to contact us again.
Kind Regards,”
Completely unacceptable.
- journey was Ellesmere Port to Northwich on the evening of 25th July 2023
- Ellesmere Port to Helsby on the once per day evening train
- Helsby to Chester
- Chester to Northwich.
- train to Helsby did not turn up, showed as “on time” on National Rail website, no departure boards on the platform
- asked Northern twitter account, they ignored me for an hour.
- train finally rocks up 25 mins late, no one gets off, I am the only one getting on.
- again, Northern left me in the dark about this delay.
- missed connection from Helsby to Chester (and the onward connection to Northwich)
- got the next trains from Helsby and Chester an hour later.
- northern is only giving me one free single and not a free return because “I was only delayed 59 minutes”
- appealed and still lost
- contacted customer services exactly 7 days after appeal rejection and got this response:
“Thank you for contacting Northern,
I am contacting you in refence to your delay repay claim, I can see you were delayed by 59 minutes so you have received the correct compensation. Also if you want to appeal a claim you only have 28 days to appeal.
If you have any other questions please feel free to contact us again.
Kind Regards,”
Completely unacceptable.
northwichcat
Established Member
I've had that with both Northern and XC. I appealed against XC and eventually won but didn't have any luck with Northern. The Northern complimentary singles are an alternative to the standard compensation and potentially a more generous level than you would get in cash.
Ironically the train you caught at Ellesmere Port had done Newton Heath-Stockport-Northwich-Chester-Helsby-Ellesmere Port but you need to change twice to get between Northwich and Ellesmere Port!
ServerHoster
Member
I cannot believe this email I've just received.
"Dear [my name],
Thank you for contacting Northern.
We have had a look at your correspondence, and we believe this falls under the responsibility of MerseyRail. We have forwarded your correspondence over to MerseyRail and we have asked that they adopt your case and respond directly.
You should be contacted shortly, however, please find MerseyRail’s details should you wish to contact them directly:
Email: [email protected]
Phone:
Kind Regards,
Northern Customer Relations Team."
northwichcat
Established Member
It's probably because you chose to travel on a slower permitted route, rather than taking the fastest train. So someone's typed in Ellesmere Port to Northwich into a journey planner and all the options suggest the first operator is Merseyrail, so they've wrongly passed it on, instead of reading the earlier correspondence properly.
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ServerHoster
Member
Yes, or the other thing would be, as I emphasised that they left me stuck at Ellesmere Port, they probably just went "Ellesmere Port? That's a Merseyrail station, I'll pass it on to them."
It's time to bring this thread back to life perhaps. An interesting interaction with a (very polite and friendly) staff member as part of the LNER social media team the other week. I'm not after advice, more pointing out another poor implementation of the system.
On 21st December me and my wife attempted to get from Doncaster to Edinburgh. We held 2 First Open Singles (with 2 together Railcard). As many will know, chaos ensued that day in many parts of the network but fallen trees south of there stopped much traffic for many an hour. The train we intended to catch was 3hrs late and terminated at Doncaster anyway. We managed to get going later in the afternoon and arrived several hours after our planned arrival.
Whilst it was clear that LNER are "responsible" for the delay repay claim, they decided to (within a couple of hours) determine that actually Crosscountry are responsible.
I questioned this and had a brief text based chat with one of the social media team by direct message.
Their claim is that as the 1110 was delayed (and subsequently cancelled) we should have taken the 1115 Northern service to Sheffield, and then boarded a Crosscountry service to Edinburgh via Leeds.
I had several points and questions, which didn't necessarily generate a direct response.
On 21st December me and my wife attempted to get from Doncaster to Edinburgh. We held 2 First Open Singles (with 2 together Railcard). As many will know, chaos ensued that day in many parts of the network but fallen trees south of there stopped much traffic for many an hour. The train we intended to catch was 3hrs late and terminated at Doncaster anyway. We managed to get going later in the afternoon and arrived several hours after our planned arrival.
Whilst it was clear that LNER are "responsible" for the delay repay claim, they decided to (within a couple of hours) determine that actually Crosscountry are responsible.
I questioned this and had a brief text based chat with one of the social media team by direct message.
Their claim is that as the 1110 was delayed (and subsequently cancelled) we should have taken the 1115 Northern service to Sheffield, and then boarded a Crosscountry service to Edinburgh via Leeds.
I had several points and questions, which didn't necessarily generate a direct response.
- How would a passenger due to board the 1110 think to board a completely different service going in the opposite direction, locate this, and then board it within 5 minutes of the proposed departure time?
- At 1110 the original service was just showing as running but delayed on the screens at the station. Who in their right mind would look at this and decide to change their route entirely based on this, this is even more ridiculous when we consider.................
- Doncaster to Edinburgh is not Valid via Sheffield, and even if it was permitted due to disruption, a delay repay system does not know this.
- Regardless of what a passenger "should" have done according to the automated system, the fact the journey they intended to take became impossible was STILL the fault of LNER so the responsibility falls to them anyway.
northwichcat
Established Member
Even not being an expert with LNER I can see a flaw with that. You held First Class tickets. You were due to travel on a direct service which had First Class. Northern don't offer First Class.
Have you appealed the decision? I had one where Northern presumed I caught a train that staff had told passengers to alight because the driver hadn't turned up and to board the following service from a different platform (departing 60 minutes later). However, their system showed the original train departing 55 minutes late, meaning the delay was 30-60 minutes. After appealing and waiting over a month Northern accepted the appeal, but are yet to pay out.
Deny; deny; deny. It wasn't me. The time, and therefore money spent in refuting claims is huge, and reattributing 'claims'. I guess the customer is never right, including First Class, whose future custom and fare income I would have thought should be valued. But then, what do I know. 'The System' can't be wrong.
I'm pretty sure that's not how it normally works.
This was one of the most puzzling parts. But this is what I’m told.
They’ve reopened the case (on the 4th) so I’m expecting a result soon. I’m not overly worried about not getting it paid, anyone can see it’s a valid claim, just disappointing the automated systems are so poorly set up and the alleged algorithms not customer focussed.
I'm having trouble with EMR rejecting claims but taking a month to do so at which point I struggle to remember what happened. Is there a website showing actual train times and cancellations that goes back that far in time?
Also the EMR Delay Repay website is one of worst websites I have ever used!
Also the EMR Delay Repay website is one of worst websites I have ever used!
You might find what you want at https://www.ontimetrains.co.uk/
I was pointed to this when I disputed an arrival time, though my argument had been that their estimated times were off, not that the records didn't say what they said they did.
Mcr Warrior
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 8 Jan 2009
- Messages
- 11,845
Alternatively, the one linked below *might* be of help...
Home Page - Recent Train Times
www.recenttraintimes.co.uk
I can believe that. I had a claim with TPE a few years ago for a Euston to Piccadilly to Darlington journey (the ECML was closed so I decided to go that way to get home). The TPE from Piccadilly was cancelled, next train in an hour. The system declined my claim on the basis that it decided my journey was actually via Liverpool (that's what it's internal journey planner found for Euston to Darlington) and I would not have been delayed at all. This despite me travelling on APs...
Resolved immediately upon appeal of course.
I have been battling TPE with another Delay Repay claim recently using split tickets (an Off-Peak Day Return and a 7-day season on e-ticket). Initial claim was declined as I failed to submit the correct evidence as the season ticket should have been uploaded as a pdf (this of course is impossible as that ticket type doesn't produce a pdf) rather than a booking confirmation (despite their own webform saying a booking confirmation is acceptable). Appealed and this was refused on the basis that my journey could not be found (it was a direct TPE train from York to Redcar Central). Complaint went in. Claim has now been authorised.
The links helped thanks as it reminded me what had happened. It turns out my train was unexpectantly cancelled along with the rest of the morning's trains. I had to get a slower replacement bus service. It will be interesting to hear why EMR don't think I was delayed!
Fawkes Cat
Established Member
- Joined
- 8 May 2017
- Messages
- 2,993
Might this be one where the timetable was changed before 2200 the previous day so the railway argue that buses were the scheduled service?
Fermiboson
Member
Has anyone thought of an FOI request to one of the repeat offender TOCs on:
- Distribution of time taken to respond to Delay Repay claims
- Percentage of Delay Repay claims initially rejected which were eventually accepted on appeal
- Amount of complimentary vouchers/tickets/etc offered during Delay Repay processes (and percentage accepted)
- Breakdown of Delay Repay rejection reasons (invalid routing, service not found, different train to be used, etc)
- Ratio of clickthrough rates to Delay Repay websites to actual delay repay claims submitted
and other such similar information?
- Distribution of time taken to respond to Delay Repay claims
- Percentage of Delay Repay claims initially rejected which were eventually accepted on appeal
- Amount of complimentary vouchers/tickets/etc offered during Delay Repay processes (and percentage accepted)
- Breakdown of Delay Repay rejection reasons (invalid routing, service not found, different train to be used, etc)
- Ratio of clickthrough rates to Delay Repay websites to actual delay repay claims submitted
and other such similar information?
Haywain
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 3 Feb 2013
- Messages
- 15,242
Only a limited number of TOCs are subject to FOI.
Fermiboson
Member
That is true, but far as I can see it hasn't stopped anyone else on this forum.
So a month on and a couple of contacts and they appear to just be fobbing off and ignoring things now.
I have however had (on 31st Jan) a message from XC saying “not us, we’ve passed this on to LNER”. The whole system is appalling. I shall be contacting them by phone at the start of next week and then taking the legal route if it’s not dealt with a sensible time after that. I feel the Ombudsman would be a waste of everyone’s time but I am tempted to give it a go.
Meanwhile, after nearly a year of smoothly processing my claims, Northern have back slid and turned down a claim for not supplying a pdf of the ticket used for the journey. As always this is impossible as my season ticket is an s-ticket so doesn't come with a pdf. And, as always, the Northern Delay Repay portal clearly states you can upload a booking confirmation. Appeal lodged. Meanwhile another outstanding claim using the same sort of ticket with Northern has been approved whilst this was has been denied.
It shouldn't be this bloody difficult...
It shouldn't be this bloody difficult...
northwichcat
Established Member
Northern are outdoing themselves. I submitted a Delay Claim eligible for £55. Their response was they didn't operate a train that would allow me to complete my journey, so I should seek a refund for the unused ticket. That was despite submitting the return part of an Off Peak Return on orange printed stock, where the guard had scribbled the date on it. They cancelled the second to last service but operated the last service, meaning a 1 hour delay. And given it was an Off Peak Return (that didn't expire for another two weeks), it would have been valid for the first train the following morning, even if they think they cancelled the last train as well.
I wonder whether train operators just see Delay Repay claims for larger amounts and just choose a random reason for rejection, in the hope it goes away.
I wonder whether train operators just see Delay Repay claims for larger amounts and just choose a random reason for rejection, in the hope it goes away.
Trainbike46
Established Member
So my experience with delay repay from West Midlands Trains (specifically with LNWR):
- Form stated that tickets should be cut in half or otherwise defaced
- No button to select split tickets
- my delay repay claim was denied after 10 days as "my tickets were not valid for the journey made," The combination of tickets I used was certainly valid for the journey made
- was asked to correct my ticket details
- System did not let me reenter the same ticket details
- I emailed customer services a few days ago, so far no response
Is this likely to have been an auto-rejection, or has a person hit reject? if it was an autorejection, why did it take 10 days? if it was a person, presumably they would have looked at the photograph of the tickets and seen that there were 2 tickets which together covered the whole journey
Norwich definitely returns tickets after use, Cambridge definitely retains them (unless that's changed recently), so depends on which GA station you travelled to
What are they hoping to achieve by making you cut your ticket in half or otherwise deface it?
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I believe some TOCs try to place the burden on the retailer, hence they are keen for you to seek a refund rather than provide you with compensation.
A refund means that the TOC who delayed you may not lose out quite so much, as the refund would reduce the ORCATS revenue for all relevant TOCs, proportionally. It also imposes costs on retailers, which are unrecoverable by retailers.
If my proposal was adopted, there'd never be a case of a TOC trying to fob you off to another TOC, or to a retailer, ever again:
Delay Repay should be provided by retailers
The curent system, whereby a refund request goes to the retailer but a delay repay request goes to the TOC who is deemed to have caused the delay, is not fit for purpose. Passengers get confused and not only that but TOCs themselves have been known, on numerous occasions, to erroneously palm...
www.railforums.co.uk
Of course, it'll never happen; the TOCs rule the roost, and they know that they can get away with anticompetitive practices.
Unless it's an Open Return (in the traditional sense, i.e. valid for a month) there is no good reason; it's been discussed in previous threads.
I think in some cases, it's a tactic to put people off. People may not even have the tickets any more.
Some TOCs seem desperate to get out of paying compensation; they see customers as an inconvenience to the running of the railway.