True, but Cambridge is a very, very common destination from King's Cross.
It is, but I wonder how many other destinations are also very popular from King's Cross? The problem is that there are so many places that so many people will want to travel to, and so many tickets they can use to get them there. And I would guess that Off Peak Returns are going to be more common in the late afternoon than Off peak Day Returns.
None of this excuses what happened, of copurse, but it's illustrative of the difficulties of training staff and of them retaining any information they may have been given. Both are problems that need to be looked at, in my view.
Staff ought to be trained to check when they aren't sure rather than refusing entry and leaving the burden on the customer. I think a lot of customers, rather than "asserting" that their ticket is valid, will assume they have made a mistake and that the industry professional at the gateline is right. The public should not be required to second-guess gateline staff that should know what they are doing. If staff is not sure, they should find out. That is (or at least should be) part of their job.
Absolutely. This is the approach that should be drummed into gateline staff on induction and for ever after!
If all they are doing is being a barrier, they should leave that role to the mechanical barriers, who presumably require less pay.
This leads on to another issue - barriers being programmed to reject tickets. I don't know what the current position is at Kings Cross, but it could well be that there has been a blanket ban on all off peak tickets after 1600 or so.
If that is the case, then it is even more necessary for gate staff to either double check validities of tickets presented to them, or to know the different validities (I suggest the former is more realistic) rather than just preventing people from travelling because the barrier says so. As you say, they might as well not be there if that is all they are going to do.
That's good - but have the barrier staff been trained to know what it means?
I would guess not!
Indeed. But it is not unique to FCC. Back when I was commuting to [stn]NMP[/stn], the Virgin gateline at [stn]EUS[/stn] frequently rejected valid off-peak tickets where the outbound portion would not have been invalid but the return portion (which I was using) was.
It's not unique to FCC, or to King's Cross (i've tried to be general!). The problem does seem to be worse in London, though perhaps that's just down to the volume of passengers.
Hi All,
I am the flatmate in question. I have to say I'm overwhelmed by the responses!
Re: clearing up some questions, it was a day return off-peak ticket, purchased from a ticket machine at 17:34, and I was looking to catch the 17:44 train to Cambridge. Re: the validity time, that was on the machine itself, and not the ticket. I took a picture of this (Valid after 09:29) and showed this to the person on the barrier on one of my many visits to attempt to board a train, and she still wasn't having any of it. She was shown both portions of my ticket, with accompanying proof I had just purchased them.
Hi Lou. You need to report this matter urgently. It is completely unacceptable. Seek assurances that this matter will be addressed, and in a timely manner.
After almost an hour of attempting to board a train to Cambridge with my valid ticket, I just gave up. I was fed up of queuing at the ticket office to be told repeatedly that my ticket was valid (I know it was valid, seems the whole planet did apart from the barrier person!), so I went to St Pancras to get a refund on my ticket from the First Capital Connect desk. Funnily enough, the ticket office staff person there also repeated that my ticket was valid(!), and immediately authorised a refund.
It does appear that the ticket is valid, and that the only person who did not accept it was the barrier person. This makes it even more unacceptable that the member of staff concerned did not check with a colleague, a superior or even the ticket office.
We all make mistakes, I made a fair few in the ticket office myself, and many of those were caught by the passenger. I find it alarming that some staff are not open to the possibility they may have got soemthing wrong, possibly even more alarming than them being wrong in the first place.
I was so angry and upset yesterday to have been messed about like that. The refund doesn't cover my costs incurred to get to and from Kings Cross, nor the fact that I missed my friend's leaving do. I will be writing a letter of complaint to both East Coast (the employer of the ticket barrier person) and First Capital Connect (for issuing valid tickets that aren't accepted by barriers). If anyone can offer advice on this, I would be very grateful.
Thanks,
Lou
If the person was employed by East Coast, then write only to East Coast. It is likely the barriers have been programmed by them as well. On this occasion, FCC do not appear to have been in the wrong. The TVM sold a perfectly valid ticket, and it is only the representative of East Coast that has denied you the travel you were entitled to.
As I said above, ask for assurances that there will be a briefing for all staff, and retraining where necessary. I would also ask for compensation for the amount of money that was wasted in getting to King's Cross as well.
