GWR delay claim - any escallation for repeated incorrect denials?

[Gagravarr]

For those who don't know, the GWR delay compensation scheme is a bit of a mess - it still appears to largely be 3 entirely separate ones depending on who used to run the service before it became FGW / GWR. They've also gone a bit quiet on the move to simple Delay Repay, but that's a different issue for now...

For the ex-Thames Trains, ex-FGW Link services from Paddington out towards Oxford, their rules are

We’ll compensate you for 50% of the cost of your tickets if you're delayed by:

• 30 minutes on a rail journey of less than an hour
• 1 hour on a rail journey of over an hour

In theory, this ought to be fairly easy to handle. In practice, on every one of the last half-dozen or so claims either myself or the other half have put in (for journeys of under an hour with 30+ minutes delay), we've had replies back within a few weeks saying something like:

I’ve checked the details for you and we won’t be able to give you any
compensation this time.In line with our Passenger’s Charter, we only offer
compensation for delays of an hour or more.

We then have to complain again, quoting the relevant part of their passengers charter, and pointing out that London / Reading to Oxford is under a different bit. Wait another few weeks, and they'll either come back saying "ah, but your journey was more than an hour" (it was under an hour before you delayed it!), or "that doesn't apply to this journey". Submit claim #3, with reference to claims #1 and #2, spelling out once more what their own rules are, and finally a few more weeks later (so typically nearly 2 months from initial delay) you'll get something like:

Thank you for your further correspondence regarding your journey on XX
December. I have re-investigated the delay and, due to the line that you
were travelling on, we will be compensating you for the delay.

I'm sorry that you were previously given incorrect information.

(The cheque or rail voucher may not actually ever turn up, but that's a different rant...)

After maybe half a dozen of these in the last 2 months, it rather seems that due to incompetence or malice, GWR are repeatedly failing to pay out valid delay compensation claims.

Is there any kind of (effective / worthwhile) escalation route I can go down, to solve this before my next 30-59 minute delay on a 0-59 minute GWR ex-Thames journey?

 

[richw]

Some people elsewhere (not on this forum) have reported some successes through credit card chargebacks.

 

[father_jack]

I would wager that your issues are more influenced by incompetence and ineptitude rather than malice on the part of the GWR (lack of) customer services department. I heard recently of a GWR staff member ringing an internal GWR number to be told by the person at the end of the line that "we don't do customer service on this number...............".

 

[Kite159]

GWR should have never outsourced customer services to Capita.

 

[sheff1]

You may wish to consider contacting your MP.

 

[AlterEgo]

Contacting your MP to complain about customer service is a waste of time, even if it is relating to a government franchise.

I can guarantee, from having handled those letters myself, that the MP themselves never write them (some student working for them will knock it up). Nothing meaningful will happen unless a very serious oversight has occurred.

The proper escalation is to Transport Focus, and if there’s still no joy, to chargeback or court and perhaps even the press.

Don’t waste your MP’s time.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

What might be happening is they could simply be looking up the wrong train when they check to validate the claim.

It's worth exploring that possibility.

A couple of years ago - not with GWR but with another TOC - I had a claim initially refused three times because, as it turned out after I eventually escalated it to CEO level, the claims staff had repeatedly looked up the train which was booked to arrive shortly before the time at which my heavily delayed train actually arrived.

In my case I had kept a screenshot of the RTT page for the train in question, plus listed the full rake of rolling stock involved - this enabled the senior manager to whom the investigation was delegated to very quickly identify that yes I had been about 35 minutes late in and not the 18 minutes late the claims people were insisting. I ended up being offered a 100% refund plus two free first class return tickets to a destination of my choice on their network as a result.

 

[sheff1]

Contacting your MP to complain about customer service is a waste of time, even if it is relating to a government franchise.

I can guarantee, from having handled those letters myself, that the MP themselves never write them (some student working for them will knock it up). Nothing meaningful will happen unless a very serious oversight has occurred.

The proper escalation is to Transport Focus, and if there’s still no joy, to chargeback or court and perhaps even the press.

Don’t waste your MP’s time.

I appreciate that UK TOCs are seemingly a law unto themselves, but when I worked in an organisation providing services on behalf of the government I can assure you that letters on a MP's House of Commons notepaper were taken very seriously. If the MP ever had call to make the same complaint again due to a failure to rectify the original issue I would have expected there to be serious repercussions within the organisation (it never happened, so I cannot be 100% certain).

I would not consider myself to be wasting my MP's time by drawing their attention to repeated failures by an organisation to accurately implement something they had been 'contracted' to do by the government. I would not take such a matter to the press. You, obviously, are free to take a different view and follow a different escalation route.

The OP asked for suggestions on escalation routes and I made one. They will, of course, make their own decision as to which suggestion, if any, they follow.

 

[Wolfie]

Contacting your MP to complain about customer service is a waste of time, even if it is relating to a government franchise.

I can guarantee, from having handled those letters myself, that the MP themselves never write them (some student working for them will knock it up). Nothing meaningful will happen unless a very serious oversight has occurred.

The proper escalation is to Transport Focus, and if there’s still no joy, to chargeback or court and perhaps even the press.

Don’t waste your MP’s time.

I suspect that my MP (the member for Islington North ie Jeremy Corbyn) would take great delight in taking on any TOC....

 

[Wirewiper]

Try the Transport Focus route.

https://www.transportfocus.org.uk/advice-and-complaints/rail-complaints/

Of course, there's nothing to stop you copying in your local MP and the Press if you want.

 

[jimm]

For those who don't know, the GWR delay compensation scheme is a bit of a mess - it still appears to largely be 3 entirely separate ones depending on who used to run the service before it became FGW / GWR. They've also gone a bit quiet on the move to simple Delay Repay, but that's a different issue for now...

For the ex-Thames Trains, ex-FGW Link services from Paddington out towards Oxford, their rules are

We’ll compensate you for 50% of the cost of your tickets if you're delayed by:

• 30 minutes on a rail journey of less than an hour
• 1 hour on a rail journey of over an hour

In theory, this ought to be fairly easy to handle. In practice, on every one of the last half-dozen or so claims either myself or the other half have put in (for journeys of under an hour with 30+ minutes delay), we've had replies back within a few weeks saying something like:



We then have to complain again, quoting the relevant part of their passengers charter, and pointing out that London / Reading to Oxford is under a different bit. Wait another few weeks, and they'll either come back saying "ah, but your journey was more than an hour" (it was under an hour before you delayed it!), or "that doesn't apply to this journey". Submit claim #3, with reference to claims #1 and #2, spelling out once more what their own rules are, and finally a few more weeks later (so typically nearly 2 months from initial delay) you'll get something like:



(The cheque or rail voucher may not actually ever turn up, but that's a different rant...)

After maybe half a dozen of these in the last 2 months, it rather seems that due to incompetence or malice, GWR are repeatedly failing to pay out valid delay compensation claims.

Is there any kind of (effective / worthwhile) escalation route I can go down, to solve this before my next 30-59 minute delay on a 0-59 minute GWR ex-Thames journey?

This kind of thing has been going on for years now - even when the work was carried out in house by FGW. It appears that the message that different rules apply in the former NSE area just don't seem to come through when people handling the claims are being trained and I guess that staff turnover is high, so they never get on top of the problem.

While emailing the GWR md's office straight away when a claim is refused usually gets the right result in terms of receiving the compensation, using this method over a number of years doesn't seem to have had any effect on encouraging FGW/GWR to ensure claims are dealt with correctly in the first place.

I have been in touch with Transport Focus about the situation but I don't think First Group is too fussed - it's presumably that much cheaper then employing staff themselves that they are willing to put up with the inevitable number of complaints about incorrect refusals, rather than take steps to do anything about it.

 

[Master29]

Capita are a bunch of tealeaves. You might as well ask the cat, and yes, this is from experience.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Capita are a bunch of tealeaves. You might as well ask the cat, and yes, this is from experience.

Well, at least you can make a nice cup of tea with them

 

[Starmill]

I have a recent claim where I was delayed on a through Advance because my second of two legs was cancelled. This caused a delay of approx 1h 15. It was an Advance from the Cotswold line to Ealing Broadway with one change at London Paddington. They rejected the claim on the basis that the delay was less than one hour. I fail to see how the journey could possibly have been made with a delay of under an hour.

In my view the rejection of valid claims for delay compensation is not really a 'customer service' issue. The train company might like to lump it in with praise, questions and complaints etc but in reality they are not any of those things. These are simply contractual payments that must be made, like buying a ticket is. There can be no excuses for getting it wrong.