The worst experience I have ever been treated to at a booking office was at Altrincham (before TfGM took over responsibility for day-to-day operations from Northern). I must beg forgiveness for the somewhat lengthy nature of this post.
By way of context, Altrincham has a Sunday service to Manchester city centre of one train every two hours. There is also a Metrolink LRV every 12 minutes.
The relevant Sunday return fares are £4.60 on Metrolink and £4.50 by rail. Only the latter fare is eligible for railcard discounts, with a reduced fare of £2.95. Obviously, this is a tempting saving.
There is no rail TVM.
Until a few years ago, the rail service terminated at Altrincham on Sundays and passengers were expected to change onto a Metrolink service to complete the journey to Manchester. Whilst this timetabling arrangement no longer obtains, it means that there is a ticketing quirk whereby train tickets from Altrincham to Manchester are valid on Metrolink services (on Sundays only).
This means that a railcard holder can purchase a return fare valid on both Metrolink and heavy rail for £2.95 on a Sunday, which is both cheaper and more flexible than the normal ticketing arrangements.
So off I go to the booking office one Sunday morning to buy a railcard discounted return ticket to Manchester. The first train of the morning had already departed a few minutes beforehand with a two hour wait for the next service.
When the clerk pointed this out to me, I commented that it wouldn't be a problem because I would simply catch the next Metrolink service roughly five minutes later.*
"Train tickets aren't valid on the tram", he says.
"They are on Sundays", I reply.
He then said that he would refuse to sell the ticket altogether, at which point I asked for the duty supervisor to be brought in. The supervisor initially backed up the clerk and said that the train ticket was not valid on Metrolink.
At this point I referred our impromptu committee to a copy of the rail timetable, which contained a helpful notice stating that the train ticket was valid on Metrolink on Sundays. I also brought up the same notice on the Metrolink website, which was repeated on a Metrolink poster on the platform.
With all this conflicting written information, the clerk's continued refusal to sell the ticket was clearly the right course of action.
Eventually, the supervisor cottoned onto the fact that I wasn't leaving without either the tickets or a letter from the booking office identifying the relevant members of staff and explaining why they had refused the sale. The supervisor and clerk grudgingly issued the requested train tickets, but then stamped them 'Restrictions Advised'. The clerk also manually endorsed both sides of the tickets using a ballpoint pen to read 'NOT VALID ON TRAM'.
I then boarded the next Metrolink service to Manchester...after fifteen minutes arguing at the booking office. Utterly useless!
I had originally decided not to bother complaining about the farce, but as it happens I had another run-in with the same clerk the following Saturday evening since he had decided to close up over an hour early.
A suitably contrite response was swiftly forthcoming from Northern. Whilst I don't have the letter to hand, it was nominally from one of the higher ups rather than the usual customer relations team respondent.
I never saw that particular booking clerk again either, although quite what happened to him I have no idea! The other clerks (sans supervisor) are still there and I have nothing but praise for the standard of service that they continue to provide.
* My return journey was made later that day on the train.
