Delayed Delay Repay

[JBuchananGB]

I submitted a Delay Repay Request to CrossCountry on 22 September, and received an automated response with a reference number.
On 15 November I received an email from them as follows:
"Thank you for your recent communication. Please accept our sincere apologies for the delay in replying. We still have your case and are working as quickly as we can to provide a response. Due to current workloads our response times have been extended significantly. You do not need to contact the team additionally to check the status of your communication, if you have a case reference the case is in hand. "
It's now 3 months since my delayed journey. How long is it reasonable to wait before following up with them?

 

[AlterEgo]

You should follow up now! Three months is very slow.

 

[Watershed]

The NRCoT states that:

Claims will be considered without undue delay and any compensation due will be paid within 14 days of your claim being agreed by the Train Company. The target is to process all claims within one month of receipt.

Obviously that states that the month is just a target - but in my book, three months is clearly an undue delay, particularly considering you only have 28 days to put in your claim.

I find it helps to set a reminder for when to chase Delay Repay claims; I set it up for a month after submission.

 

[Kite159]

Send a chaser email and if you haven't heard anything within another couple weeks raise it with the rail ombudsman as it might give them a little kick up the backside if the case has gotten lost.

And with any luck you might end up with an extra payment from XC to say sorry for the delay in dealing with the claim

 

[Adam Williams]

And with any luck you might end up with an extra payment from XC to say sorry for the delay in dealing with the claim

Delay repay delay repay?

Is there a standard formula for working out the amount owed? :P

 

[D365]

And with any luck you might end up with an extra payment from XC to say sorry for the delay in dealing with the claim

Very unlikely in my experience. But you never know.

 

[Kite159]

.

Very unlikely in my experience. But you never know.

More if it went via the ombudsman if they didn't respond to the chaser email. How long do you expect someone to wait before taking it further?

 

[Birmingham]

Noticed from CrossCountry's Twitter feed recently they are offering some complainants £20 RTVs to close their complaints in order to deal with their backlog.

 

[Hadders]

Noticed from CrossCountry's Twitter feed recently they are offering some complainants £20 RTVs to close their complaints in order to deal with their backlog.

Virgin used to offer £50 in similar circumstances.

 

[Stargull]

I'm still waiting for a claim from the end of October, from Crosscountry. GWR on the other hand, paid out in less than a week recently.

 

[m4tt]

I recieved a £20 voucher to settle my XC case after about 2 months, much better than my dealings with Avanti atm. Been waiting since August for declassifcication of 1st class. I've sent 4 emails and called them after they told me to that and all they say is "we will get to it as soon as we an" or something about making it a higher priority. It's been over a week since I called them but i'm starting to give up.

 

[trover]

Been waiting since August for declassifcication of 1st class. I've sent 4 emails and called them after they told me to that and all they say is "we will get to it as soon as we an" or something about making it a higher priority. It's been over a week since I called them but i'm starting to give up.

Raising it to the ombudsman speed things up for straightforward cases like this, from my experience.

 

[JBuchananGB]

CrossCountry have now responded accepted my claim and are to pay me more than what I expected for a 39 minute delay. So maybe it was worth the wait.

 

[richw]

Surely an automated system should be easily set up. In fact I believe if you book through certain TOCs websites you don’t even need to make the claim now, and they auto generate for you on certain tickets

 

[Haywain]

In fact I believe if you book through certain TOCs websites you don’t even need to make the claim now, and they auto generate for you on certain tickets

Some TOC websites do include automated delay repay for tickets using their own services. However, this isn't perfect as it can lead to DR payments being made when they would not be due because, for example, the systems do not recognise that alternative arrangements may have been made. It's almost too customer friendly!

 

[JBuchananGB]

I'm not sure that an automated system would have worked in my case for a journey involving CrossCountry, London Northwestern and MerseyRail, each leg of which added to the delay. Tickets (which included splitting) were bought from the Railforums ticket sales website, and collected from the booking office of the MerseyRail point of origin.

 

[Stargull]

Crosscountry customer service inform me they are still dealing with claims from September, and that I should wait longer for my October/November claims. I am unreasonably annoyed.

 

[Haywain]

Crosscountry customer service inform me they are still dealing with claims from September, and that I should wait longer for my October/November claims.

Not really good enough, they need to do better. At the very least they should be telling you when they might get round to dealing with your claim.

I am unreasonably annoyed.

Not unreasonable at all. You were only allowed 28 days to submit the claim, why should they have unlimited time to deal with it?

 

[yorkie]

Surely an automated system should be easily set up. In fact I believe if you book through certain TOCs websites you don’t even need to make the claim now, and they auto generate for you on certain tickets

Feel free to propose it in the relevant forum sections and I'll ask some questions there regarding how this would work

 

[D365]

Surely an automated system should be easily set up. In fact I believe if you book through certain TOCs websites you don’t even need to make the claim now, and they auto generate for you on certain tickets

This used to happen for me on EMR, but not in the last nine months..?