Railcard pre-selected on Trainline app

[Anonymous789]

Hi, I was interviewed under caution as my Trainline app had a railcard pre-selected without my knowledge and I don’t have such railcard. The selection may have been from when I tried to find a day travel tube card on top of the train ticket but was in the list. I had no idea what that railcard was that gave me a £1.8 reduction. I thought this was some sort of early order reduction, sales or government scheme because of cost of living. I checked later and even when I close the Trainline app it keeps on being selected. This lead to happening 6 times over about 4 weeks time. I had no idea the app had something pre-selected. What is likely going to happen now and what should I do? Will this be seen as a repeated offence? I really had no idea. I won’t be using the Trainline app anymore, that’s for sure. I may not even travel by train anymore.. Thanks!.

 

[Huntergreed]

Hi, I was interviewed under caution as my Trainline app had a railcard pre-selected without my knowledge and I don’t have such railcard. The selection may have been from when I tried to find a day travel tube card on top of the train ticket but was in the list. I had no idea what that railcard was that gave me a £1.8 reduction. I thought this was some sort of early order reduction, sales or government scheme because of cost of living. I checked later and even when I close the Trainline app it keeps on being selected. This lead to happening 6 times over about 4 weeks time. I had no idea the app had something pre-selected. What is likely going to happen now and what should I do? Will this be seen as a repeated offence? I really had no idea. I won’t be using the Trainline app anymore, that’s for sure. I may not even travel by train anymore.. Thanks!.

Welcome to the forum.

It’s quite likely that the train company in question will pick up that this has been done multiple times as they will be able to access your purchase history.

To fully assist you, please give us more details by answering the following questions:

- Where were you travelling from/to when caught?
- What EXACT ticket did you hold?
- What did you admit to the inspector (just the one instance, or the multiple instances?)
- Can you find how many times you have done this in your purchase history?

You will eventually recieve a letter from the train company who stopped you. This can take up to 6 months to arrive. It’s imperative you respond to the letter you punctually. You should keep in mind the following when you draft your response:

- Apologise for the incident
- State what you have learned
- Assure them it won’t happen again
- Offer to pay the unpaid fare/fares and their costs in investigating the matter

Most TOC’s are willing to offer an out of court settlement to individuals who have not come to their attention before. This is not guaranteed, but you significantly increase the likelihood if you draft your letter with the above points in mind and engage constructively with the process.

Once you have a draft, post it on here and we will offer amendments before you send it off to the train company.

 

[Anonymous789]

I traveled from Maidenhead to Paddington.

I had a simple open return ticket booked through the Trainline app.

I was quite surprised my ticket was reduced because of a railcard pre-selected.

I had no idea which is what I told the inspector repeatedly, and this is the honest truth.

At that time I didn’t know this had happened 5 times before.

I usually booked a ticked in a rush outside the gates.

I checked again and even after having closed the app everything except day and time is pre-selected.

There‘s also a pop-up ‘Get your usual ticket now’ and ‘Pay’ which hides the railcard pre-selected.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

I traveled from Maidenhead to Paddington.

I had a simple open return ticket booked through the Trainline app.

I was quite surprised my ticket was reduced because of a railcard pre-selected.

I had no idea which is what I told the inspector repeatedly, and this is the honest truth.

At that time I didn’t know this had happened 5 times before.

I usually booked a ticked in a rush outside the gates.

Please can you also let us know:

Did you use a TfL (Elizabeth Line) or GWR train? My understanding is that the two operators take different approaches

And are you under 18 or older? Again, there can be differences in how they deal with people depending on their age.

 

[Anonymous789]

It was GWR.

I’m 52, very much used to the old fashioned paper train tickets.

 

[johnny_t]

I nearly fell foul of this the other week.

I'd bought some tickets for one of my sons (who has a railcard).

Next time I went to buy some for myself to go down to London, I was surprised at how cheap they were. I only just noticed that the railcard was still being applied before I paid

 

[fandroid]

This is not the first case we've seen, but others tend to be for actual cards that have expired and the buyer hasn't been aware that the discount continued to be applied (by Trainline, of course!)

 

[Buzby]

There are two sides to this ‘anomaly’ - clearly Trainline are storing cookies on the users browser So when the customer returns, most of the pre-selected options are recalled and used. As I recall there is a pop-up advising this will be done unless you reject the offer of cookie placement. Now this may be fine for customer convenience, but not in the case of railcard discounts where the purchaser becomes legally liable should the discounted ticket be expired or unavailable and the purchaser doesn’t notice.

If cookies are rejected, then each time the website is accessed the purchaser would have to select every time which card should apply for this journey. The downside to this is there is a valid card available, and the box isn’t ticked, then the customer pays the full undiscounted rate - the upside? There is no way they can be challenged with a penalty fare (or worse) for the journey through this oversight.

Personally I don’t use TL for reasons that aren’t relevant here but it may be interesting to discover if the ‘necessary cookies only’ option stores the railcard preferences, as there is no way to opt out of these and it could be argued that TL was complicit in pushing invalid discounts that have no issues for them, but cause very real issues for their customers.

 

[skyhigh]

There are two sides to this ‘anomaly’ - clearly Trainline are storing cookies on the users browser So when the customer returns, most of the pre-selected options are recalled and used. As I recall there is a pop-up advising this will be done unless you reject the offer of cookie placement. Now this may be fine for customer convenience, but not in the case of railcard discounts where the purchaser becomes legally liable should the discounted ticket be expired or unavailable and the purchaser doesn’t notice.

If cookies are rejected, then each time the website is accessed the purchaser would have to select every time which card should apply for this journey. The downside to this is there is a valid card available, and the box isn’t ticked, then the customer pays the full undiscounted rate - the upside? There is no way they can be challenged with a penalty fare (or worse) for the journey through this oversight.

Personally I don’t use TL for reasons that aren’t relevant here but it may be interesting to discover if the ‘necessary cookies only’ option stores the railcard preferences, as there is no way to opt out of these and it could be argued that TL was complicit in pushing invalid discounts that have no issues for them, but cause very real issues for their customers.

We are talking about the app here, not the website. So cookie popups are completely irrelevant as you don't get them on the app.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is not the first case we've seen, but others tend to be for actual cards that have expired and the buyer hasn't been aware that the discount continued to be applied (by Trainline, of course!)

It's very easily done, but equally as a Railcard holder I actually want it to default to using the Railcard, as it's one less thing to select. I don't know what the fix is, to be honest, maybe a "You have applied an X Railcard, is this still applicable?" popup?

 

[Buzby]

We are talking about the app here, not the website. So cookie popups are completely irrelevant as you don't get them on the app.

Even worse then, especially if the TL options are buried in a settings page that the purchaser doesn’t access prior to purchase.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Even worse then, especially if the TL options are buried in a settings page that the purchaser doesn’t access prior to purchase.

The Railcards aren't hidden in a settings page, they're on the search page, see attached screenshot from the Trainline app showing the Railcard selection on the front screen.

Perhaps it'd be clearer if it was in bold or yellow or something.

 

[skyhigh]

Even worse then, especially if the TL options are buried in a settings page that the purchaser doesn’t access prior to purchase.

Railcards applied are shown on the search page of the app and via an icon on the fare/journey selection page. Have you used the app?

 

[Deafdoggie]

Even worse then, especially if the TL options are buried in a settings page that the purchaser doesn’t access prior to purchase.

They are very accessible and very clear.

 

[Buzby]

Have you used the app?

I haven’t used them since 2014, I don’t believe they had an App then - it was website only.

 

[kristiang85]

It's very easily done, but equally as a Railcard holder I actually want it to default to using the Railcard, as it's one less thing to select. I don't know what the fix is, to be honest, maybe a "You have applied an X Railcard, is this still applicable?" popup?

When you add a memorised Railcard, it asks for an expiry date and deletes it when that's reached. Simple.