More than 20 working days and no response from Cross Country about a Delay Repay Claim

[trenopendo]

Hi there,

I submitted a Delay Repay Claim to Cross Country 21 working days ago. This was due to a delay when going from Oxford to Liverpool changing at Birmingham International.

Cross Country cancelled the train I intended to take (this would have produced a ~26 min delay by itself) and then West Midlands arrived ~10 min late to Liverpool, for a total of 36 min delay.

I have tried sending 2 follow up e-mails, as they are supposed to answer in 10 working days or 20 in case of high volume correspondence. No luck so far.

Is anyone else having problems with them? Should I wait it out and contact the Rail Ombudsman in February? Thanks.

 

[Haywain]

Did you receive a confirmation of your claim? If you did, then I would suggest phoning them. If you didn't then you will probably need to resubmit the claim. In any event, you will need some sort of response from CrossCountry before you can go to the Ombudsman.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

In any event, you will need some sort of response from CrossCountry before you can go to the Ombudsman.

No you don't. The requirement before proceeding to almost any sort of Ombudsman is to have either received an unsatisfactory final response or deadlock correspondence from the organisation in question, or to have waited a certain time period since submitting your complaint.

The Rail Ombudsman is no different in this respect and require you to wait 40 working days from submitting your complaint/enquiry before proceeding to them. You can still go to the Ombudsman even if you have no material response from the RSP if the required time has elapsed.

This rule exists to prevent organisations from frustrating the Ombudsman's existence (intentionally or through incompetence).

 

[WesternLancer]

Hi there,

I submitted a Delay Repay Claim to Cross Country 21 working days ago. This was due to a delay when going from Oxford to Liverpool changing at Birmingham International.

Cross Country cancelled the train I intended to take (this would have produced a ~26 min delay by itself) and then West Midlands arrived ~10 min late to Liverpool, for a total of 36 min delay.

I have tried sending 2 follow up e-mails, as they are supposed to answer in 10 working days or 20 in case of high volume correspondence. No luck so far.

Is anyone else having problems with them? Should I wait it out and contact the Rail Ombudsman in February? Thanks.

Welcome to the Forum

I suspect you should wait a bit longer (eg closer to the 40 days mentioned above, even though they aim to settle them in closer to 10 days) - and also be prepared to appeal to XC when they get the refund you are owed wrong!

No doubt people on this forum will be happy to check the compensation you should be entitled to if you post a bit more detail on the actual journey (planned itinerary vs actual delay at final destination) and ticket held - type / price etc

But that sounds like this:
https://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/customer-service/contact-us/delay-repay
Delays of 30-59 minutes
50% of the cost of your single ticket or 50% of the cost of either portion of your return ticket

 

[fairlie]

I've had two claims into Cross Country recently, both of which took more than 20 working days. One of them was a simple Advance Single and the other was a three-way split ticket combination. Other than being slow, they paid both without question.

 

[_toommm_]

I don't know about CrossCountry specifically, but with other companies sending a chase-up email puts the claim at the back of the queue, meaning the 20 working day SLA will be unattainable (not that a customer is meant to know that).

If you have Twitter, I would suggest tweeting them with your reference number and they can give the Delay Repay team a proverbial prod and get it chased up.

 

[trenopendo]

I don't know about CrossCountry specifically, but with other companies sending a chase-up email puts the claim at the back of the queue, meaning the 20 working day SLA will be unattainable (not that a customer is meant to know that).

Does this also reset the time (40 working days) to go the Ombudsman? That's disgusting

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Does this also reset the time (40 working days) to go the Ombudsman? That's disgusting

No, it doesn't. The way that cases are handled internally by RSPs has no relevance to that deadline. It doesn't matter, for example, if they claim that you "used the wrong form" or "sent it to the wrong department". RSPs are expected to be competent in organising their response to correspondence.

 

[_toommm_]

That's disgusting

I completely agree, but it's the same in a lot of places. It happens in my job too (not rail-related at all) - if someone emails in time chase something up or someone puts a comment on the case, the system sees it as an 'update' and subsequently updates the communication target, or 'Promise' as we know them as.

 

[Skiddaw]

If it is any help, I had a delay repay claim with them recently that went over the 40 days. I messaged them via their FB page and they responded almost instantly. I've found that CrossCountry (and, indeed Avanti West Coast and Transpennine Express) are all more responsive via FB than via email.