Refund or not?

[87electric]

So today I bought an Off Peak Day Return for Peterborough-Grantham. Purchased at Peterborough today at 3:15pm.
My intention was to spot/take photos and then catch the 17:02 as loco 90028 was back on this diagram. The 90 came in but the train was cancelled. I checked RealTimeTrains and overhead wire issues between Doncaster/Retford plus a failed Mk4 set in Grantham obviously was going to result in
a bit of chaos.
So I decided not to travel and went to the ticket office to explain my situation. I was told that because of the time that I bought my ticket I might have already travelled and was trying it on to get my money back. I denied that. Then I was told if I wanted a refund I would have to pay the £10 admin charge.
I refused to do that. I said I would try to claim back my fare through the cancelled service.
Was the person in the ticket office correct with their decisions?

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

So today I bought an Off Peak Day Return for Peterborough-Grantham. Purchased at Peterborough today at 3:15pm.
My intention was to spot/take photos and then catch the 17:02 as loco 90028 was back on this diagram. The 90 came in but the train was cancelled. I checked RealTimeTrains and overhead wire issues between Doncaster/Retford plus a failed Mk4 set in Grantham obviously was going to result in
a bit of chaos.
So I decided not to travel and went to the ticket office to explain my situation. I was told that because of the time that I bought my ticket I might have already travelled and was trying it on to get my money back. I denied that. Then I was told if I wanted a refund I would have to pay the £10 admin charge.
I refused to do that. I said I would try to claim back my fare through the cancelled service.
Was the person in the ticket office correct with their decisions?

I presume the problems causing the cancellation were not known of at the time you bought your ticket. If so, you are certainly entitled to a full and fee-free refund of your ticket, as there was disruption and you decided not to travel (under Condition 30.1 of the National Rail Conditions of Travel).

It is an unacceptably common occurrence that staff have been poorly trained and then make all sorts of ridiculous claims such as what you were told. In the case of the member of staff who you spoke to, it sounds like it was not just poor training on the rules but also a case of abject 'attitude' problems towards paying customers, if instead of apologising for the inconvenience and giving you your money back they insinuated you were trying on some kind of fraud.

If they wanted to prevent people misusing tickets in the way that the member of staff suggested then there is a very simple solution that many other countries' railway systems have adopted - ticket obliteration. The UK TOCs have decided not to adopt this system and accordingly the TOCs are forbidden from attempting to have their cake and eat it!

Let us know if Customer Services make any difficulties at all in giving you your money back.

 

[87electric]

Thank you for the prompt reply. I have submitted photos of my tickets to the LNER delay repay website.
I was taken aback by the refusal.
And no I didn't know about the disruption when I bought my ticket.
I will let you know how I get on.
Thank you.

 

[AlterEgo]

Thank you for the prompt reply. I have submitted photos of my tickets to the LNER delay repay website.
I was taken aback by the refusal.
And no I didn't know about the disruption when I bought my ticket.
I will let you know how I get on.
Thank you.

You aren't entitled to Delay Repay (which may give you a portion of the cost back), but in fact a full refund. These are different things. Call LNER tomorrow and ask them to pull your case and refund you in full straight away.

 

[87electric]

I know i'm not entitled to delay repay. I was using the cancelled train route. It has worked before when claiming. I submit photos of the tickets and a written note of the cancelled train.

 

[robbeech]

But that’s not how it works.
Delay repay is for when you’ve travelled. You can argue that you’d get a full refund from a long delay but it’s actually the wrong process. It’s not surprising that people do it that way when staff are deliberately trying to avoid paying out on refunds where they are due.

 

[87electric]

Ah, so I have just found the "refund" form to fill out on LNER.
I never knew that existed.
But as I say, I have been refunded a cancelled train via the delay repay form a few times in the past.
Now I know better.

 

[yorkie]

You are entitled to a refund (rather than Delay Repay compensation) with no admin fee.

In this case, the retailer and service provider are the same (ie. LNER), so I can see why using the incorrect form has worked for similar journeys in the past, but it's best to use the correct method.

I can see why the staff were suspicious but there is no evidence against you, and you provided an explanation that ought to have been satisfactory, so therefore they have no right to refuse the refund.

Let us know how this goes.

 

[87electric]

Today I received a full refund by cheque. I appreciate I may not have used the correct way to deal with this but when I as a passenger/customer are banging their head against a wall and getting nowhere then I think I will use any way I can to resolve a situation.
Am I being naive in thinking that a company like LNER would just direct my case to the relevant department?
Anyway, all is well and thank you all for the advice.

 

[najaB]

Am I being naive in thinking that a company like LNER would just direct my case to the relevant department?

To a certain extent, yes, in that large organisations often struggle to provide a seamless customer experience where issues fall across department boundaries. In an ideal world those boundaries would be invisible to the customer, but in practice the fact that those departments are often large enough to be companies in their own right means that employees have a natural tendency to say 'It's not us, it's them' attitude when dealing with inbound cases.

That shouldn't be the customer's problem, but often it is.

 

[35B]

To a certain extent, yes, in that large organisations often struggle to provide a seamless customer experience where issues fall across department boundaries. In an ideal world those boundaries would be invisible to the customer, but in practice the fact that those departments are often large enough to be companies in their own right means that employees have a natural tendency to say 'It's not us, it's them' attitude when dealing with inbound cases.

That shouldn't be the customer's problem, but often it is.

And it is often in the customer's interest to be aware of these internal divisions and act in the knowledge of them, rather than bat their head against the brick wall saying "but you are all the same organisation".

 

[323235]

To a certain extent, yes, in that large organisations often struggle to provide a seamless customer experience where issues fall across department boundaries. In an ideal world those boundaries would be invisible to the customer, but in practice the fact that those departments are often large enough to be companies in their own right means that employees have a natural tendency to say 'It's not us, it's them' attitude when dealing with inbound cases.

That shouldn't be the customer's problem, but often it is.

Well I know from various reports that Northern often reject refund claims submitted by delay repay multiple times and do not forward them on to the relevant team, so many of us know the potential pitfalls of doing so, even if LNER are generally better at dealing with such matters.