Thank you for your Email of 10 April 2018 regarding your previous correspondence and my reply.
I can only reiterate what was said in the previous email and passengers are expected to hold a valid ticket before they board one of our services. If a passenger chooses to board without a valid ticket covering their entire journey, from a station where there were facilities to buy one, they may be liable to a Penalty Fare. If the ticket office was closed, you would have had the Ticket Machine available to purchase a valid ticket.
Guards are not permitted to sell discounted tickets of any kind on the train, if the customer boarded at a station with functioning ticket purchasing facilities. Our guards are unable to accept Rail Travel Vouchers and the guard was right to ask you to purchase a new ticket.
If you are not satisfied with this response, you can contact Transport Focus (see contact details below). This is an independent body which will review your complaint in order to seek a satisfactory resolution.
Tel: 0300 123 2350
Email:
[email protected]
Twitter:
@transportfocus
Post: Transport Focus, Freepost RTEH-XAGE-BYKZ, PO Box 5594, Southend on Sea, SS1 9PZ
Please note that in addition to this, the Consumer Rights Act requires us to advise you of an ‘Alternative Dispute Resolution’ organisation for your complaint. In our case this is The Consumer Ombudsman (
www.consumer-ombudsman.org). However, as Transport Focus already provides a mediation service for customers in the rail industry, we do not make use of the ADR process, and correspondence to the Consumer Ombudsman will be redirected to Transport Focus.
Thank you again for contacting South West Trains.
Kind regards
Aimee Hunt
Customer Service Centre Advisor