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Train Investigations Limited (TIL) - court threats

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ValleyLines142

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Very interesting read. I can only admire you for your perseverance and thick skin - others in the same position would have crumbled and just coughed up even having done no wrong.

It is incredibly concerning that companies act in this way, especially during such a difficult time in the world at the moment. You'd think at the moment a bit of love and help would go a long way; clearly that hasn't been the case here.

I can only echo what others have said and I would consider suing TIL for their incompetence and frankly bullying behaviour - under no circumstances whatsoever should anybody have to be subject to that.

I for one would be interested to hear of any further developments, however that is entirely your decision, and acceptably so, if you wish to disclose that. Either way, my best wishes and regards to you and hope it hasn't put you off travelling on the railways.
 
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Skie

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I don’t think thetrainline are to blame here. The ticket showed as refunded due to a glitch, which may be their fault or the fault of the device XCT use if it doesn’t handle this particular ticketing scenario properly. Remember that whilst showing the ticket was refunded, it’s also reported a successful “clipping” of the same ticket to the backend database. Only valid tickets should be clipped, not cancelled or refunded ones so the device has encountered something unexpected and the programs error handling has handled it poorly.

But then the vexatious litigation was caused by XCT and TIL not investigating the circumstances properly. They have simply gone by the screenshot taken by the train manager of the device instead of checking with the ticketing database that all TOCs have access to. Doing that would have shown the facts of the matter and resolved the issue for OP much earlier, and might even have led to them getting their device fixed to handle tickets like these in a less confusing way.
 

talldave

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Sadly this reminds me of the Post Office "Horizon" debacle - organisations crippled by their inability to believe anything could be wrong with computer software specified and implemented by humans.
 

SteveM70

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Sadly this reminds me of the Post Office "Horizon" debacle - organisations crippled by their inability to believe anything could be wrong with computer software specified and implemented by humans.

And similarly, initially at least, the courts always sided with the prosecution.
 

Skie

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And similarly, initially at least, the courts always sided with the prosecution evidence presented.
Unfortunately many of the judiciary are unable to comprehend anything more technical than how to create a series link and expert witnesses tend to be experts at leaving out pertinent information that would harm their sides case. Without huge sums of money being spent in defence, it's very difficult to win an argument when it's "computer says no" but the computers logic is flat out wonky.

Luckily in this instance it's fairly easy to point out the flaw. The system of record (the big database that holds the tickets and their status) is correct, and the hand-held device created and tested by the lowest bidder for XCT is wrong.
 

Puffing Devil

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Unfortunately many of the judiciary are unable to comprehend anything more technical than how to create a series link and expert witnesses tend to be experts at leaving out pertinent information that would harm their sides case. Without huge sums of money being spent in defence, it's very difficult to win an argument when it's "computer says no" but the computers logic is flat out wonky.

Luckily in this instance it's fairly easy to point out the flaw. The system of record (the big database that holds the tickets and their status) is correct, and the hand-held device created and tested by the lowest bidder for XCT is wrong.

Thank you for both that sweeping generalisation and the conflation of the Horizon issue to which the quote referred and the XCT issue.

PS - It's a program not "a computers logic"
 

Skie

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PS - It's a program not "a computers logic"
I actually went back and toned the post down a bit because this is a rail forum, not stackoverflow. Thought the mention of logic would be more descriptive as to where the problem could lie.
 

Tetchytyke

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And similarly, initially at least, the courts always sided with the prosecution evidence presented.

Indeed. The Horizon issue isn't relevant here because the Post Office and Fujitsu staff who gave evidence apparently misled the Court, and in the Horizon prosecutions the jury accepted the prosecution case. The main person at Fujitsu who gave evidence in prosecutions refused to attend the High Court. This was so egregious that the High Court judge overseeing the civil claim actually referred the matter to the DPP for a potential perjury prosecution, which is still being considered.

There's no evidence to suggest that TIL have actively lied here, although they have failed to carry out any sort of basic investigation. That is where the issue is. TIL are setting themselves up as "investigators" without actually bothering to do any sort of investigation.

People need to remember that most prosecutions for railway matters are dealt with in bulk because defendants don't engage with the process. If a defendant engages and presents their own evidence then the Magistrates' Court will decide based on that evidence as well as that offered by the railway. If the defendant ignores the whole process then the Magistrates can only go on the evidence presented by the railway.
 

Vespa

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Once you have suceeded suing TIL for costs, I would suggest publicising this through the media, they would love a story of how the little man stood up to a bullying corporation AND include information on how to collect evidence and the fallibility of TIL also a caveat on using Trainline with caution, give XC a side order of lashings for such prosecutions.

Information is power.

Well done Scott for standing up to the the bullies, you give hope to many caught up in a Kafkaesque nightmare.
 

DJ_K666

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Costs-wise most courts consider £30 per hour for preparing your case to be reasonable (Might be worth noting how long you spent on each part) so maybe that would be a good ballpark to go for
 

robbeech

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What an awful saga of incompetence, malpractice and outright lying by three supposedly reputable organisations. One of the worst aspects is that all three were apparently willing to harass an entirely innocent passenger into accepting a criminal record, despite having done nothing at all wrong, simply in order to cover up their own incompetence.
This sort of thing happens daily, we rarely hear of it because most people pay up because they don’t understand the rules or their rights. All three are set to benefit from the passenger paying up so why would they consider taking a different approach knowing full well that they’ll either get away with this benefit, or at the very worst, they’ll still have the original price paid. There is no risk of loss to anyone here (apart from the passenger of course but sod them)
If the police investigated something this badly, questions would be asked.
Who would ask the questions and what would they do about it? I would assume there isn’t anyone here that hasn’t heard from a reliable source local to them of a situation where lack of suitable investigation has led to incorrect results.
......others in the same position would have crumbled and just coughed up even having done no wrong.
Absolutely. And they do, daily. So where is the incentive to change that? The worst that can happen is they don’t get any more money than they’ve already got, but in most cases they (perhaps unlawfully) bully the passengers into paying so they make more money, it’s difficult to put a feasible plan into operation that changes that. It makes zero financial sense.
we must remember that a person who is GUILTY of trying it on with a ticket is in many cases LESS likely to pay up, like they were less likely to pay up in the first place, so they are really taking advantage of the genuine people here because it’s them that are inclined to just pay up to make it go away.
 

Adam Williams

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Remember that whilst showing the ticket was refunded, it’s also reported a successful “clipping” of the same ticket to the backend database.

I'm reasonably certain this is working as designed (for scan events to be logged even when the ticket is cancelled).

I suspect we'll never know for sure, but it sounds to me like Trainline have a process involving multiple steps, e.g.:
  1. Cancel the e-Ticket (I guess w/ eTVD)
  2. Issue new CTR for paper ticket
  3. Present the CTR to the customer
And the process failed part-way through.. and much like a set of database queries executed outside of a transaction block, there was no proper roll-back behaviour. Hence the customer was left with no valid e-ticket and no valid collection reference for a paper ticket.

Poor treatment from all 3 companies involved, though. Disappointing to see XC hiding behind TIL, too.

Props to OP for not giving up and taking the easy route.
 

ForTheLoveOf

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And the process failed part-way through.. and much like a set of database queries executed outside of a transaction block, there was no proper roll-back behaviour. Hence the customer was left with no valid e-ticket and no valid collection reference for a paper ticket.
Yep. Happens easily enough if the data connection cuts out at the wrong moment, if this is all triggered by the app, or requires the app to receive the CTR instantly or else it gets lost. It seems a rather risky and pointless feature to include, if I may say so!
 

Mcr Warrior

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Could this case be settled out of court (i.e. withdrawn) when TIL realise the potential public sh*tstorm that would arise, with TIL possibly also offering the OP some sort of financial compensation package, albeit subject to a non-disclosure agreement (i.e. gagging order)?
 

Vespa

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Could this case be settled out of court (i.e. withdrawn) when TIL realise the potential public sh*tstorm that would arise, with TIL possibly also offering the OP some sort of financial compensation package, albeit subject to a non-disclosure agreement (i.e. gagging order)?

I would absolutely refuse a gagging order no matter how much is offered, this is public interest matter, everybody has the right to know about this and how to defend themselves, only then will reform will happen, by sweeping it under the carpet a gagging order will only serve to perpetuate a deeply flawed system.
 

island

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I beg to suggest that that depends on how much is offered. Everyone has a price.
 

DJ_K666

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I would absolutely refuse a gagging order no matter how much is offered, this is public interest matter, everybody has the right to know about this and how to defend themselves, only then will reform will happen, by sweeping it under the carpet a gagging order will only serve to perpetuate a deeply flawed system.
Aren't gagging orders in the process of being 'redefined' to prevent companies from using them to save face? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?
 

Belperpete

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Once you have suceeded suing TIL for costs, I would suggest publicising this through the media, they would love a story of how the little man stood up to a bullying corporation AND include information on how to collect evidence and the fallibility of TIL also a caveat on using Trainline with caution, give XC a side order of lashings for such prosecutions.

Information is power.

Well done Scott for standing up to the the bullies, you give hope to many caught up in a Kafkaesque nightmare.
I totally agree about going to the press with this - the more the public spotlight is thrown on this kind of behaviour the better, and the more likely TIL's wings are to be clipped. But as the OP referred it to Transport Focus, I would recommend giving them a chance to deal with it before going to the press.
 

Brissle Girl

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Aren't gagging orders in the process of being 'redefined' to prevent companies from using them to save face? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?
That's in the context of employment cases (non-disclosure agreements) where there is an accusation of improper behaviour by the employer or it's staff.

I don't think it's unreasonable otherwise for two parties to agree a settlement where the terms remain confidential. That's because one side always has the option of refusing the offer.
 

ForTheLoveOf

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That's in the context of employment cases (non-disclosure agreements) where there is an accusation of improper behaviour by the employer or it's staff.

I don't think it's unreasonable otherwise for two parties to agree a settlement where the terms remain confidential. That's because one side always has the option of refusing the offer.
I disagree - they are often used to hush up stuff that ought to be made public, and often the lesser party (employee, member of the public etc.) knows they would have a ridiculously hard time winning in Court because of the circumstances or their means, meaning it's hardly a bargain of equals. But I digress...
 
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DJ_K666

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That's in the context of employment cases (non-disclosure agreements) where there is an accusation of improper behaviour by the employer or it's staff.

I don't think it's unreasonable otherwise for two parties to agree a settlement where the terms remain confidential. That's because one side always has the option of refusing the offer.
Ah ok cheers. I know NDO's have been in the news regarding workplace bullying and incompetence covering in the NHS. Maybe there might be some overspill as any change in the law inevitably throws up new grey areas elsewhere.
 

Adam Williams

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Yep. Happens easily enough if the data connection cuts out at the wrong moment, if this is all triggered by the app, or requires the app to receive the CTR instantly or else it gets lost. It seems a rather risky and pointless feature to include, if I may say so!

Agreed; I don't personally see the value in such a feature. I guess someone did for them to introduce it :lol:

Slightly off-topic, but I really hope some the engineers/PMs involved with this feature @ Trainline get the chance to see this thread and then do a proper post-mortem on this:

  • Was it a technical issue along the lines I suggested? Or, was there something the user could have done differently to access the CTR or a valid eTicket under these circumstances (and if so, is there a UX problem that could have been foreseen here?)
    • If it was a problem with the technical implementation, why did it not account for this failure mode and re-issue an eTicket when part of the process failed (or only cancel the eTicket after the TOD booking had been fulfilled and acknowledged by the device)?
  • Were these risks foreseen and discussed during the implementation process?
  • What will be done in future to prevent a re-occurrence?

I don't want to draw any premature conclusions about the quality of engineering around this feature without knowing the full story and understanding the technical details, but at first glance from the story recounted in the OP it looks like there's been a very real screw-up here. Not to mention everything else that happened afterwards!
 

deep south

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This is a ridiculously bad implementation. There is a fundamental IT element about transactions for computers, ACID. Each transaction must be:
Atomic - a single, independent transaction
Complete - obvious, but it is either complete or it is not.
Independent - not relying on anything else
Durable - once committed, it can't be lost or undone

This is a basic requirement and has been around for many years.

Any system auditor should pick this up as a serious failing
 

Bletchleyite

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Yep. Happens easily enough if the data connection cuts out at the wrong moment, if this is all triggered by the app, or requires the app to receive the CTR instantly or else it gets lost. It seems a rather risky and pointless feature to include, if I may say so!

You'd be surprised just how many large scale corporate IT systems don't implement transactional integrity. Even major systems like SAP don't. It's more likely to be present on a small system knocked up on the side by a student! :)
 

Paul Kelly

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Only valid tickets should be clipped, not cancelled or refunded ones
Maybe you are reading too much into the meaning of the word "clipped"? It just means scanned, as far as I know. How could the ticket inspector know that the ticket was showing in the database as refunded if he/she hadn't scanned it first?
They have simply gone by the screenshot taken by the train manager of the device instead of checking with the ticketing database that all TOCs have access to. Doing that would have shown the facts of the matter and resolved the issue for OP much earlier
Can you explain in more detail? As far as I can make out this would just have shown the same thing, i.e. that Trainline had marked the ticket as having been refunded?

It certainly reads to me that the technical fault was at the Trainline end, but that CrossCountry and TIL did not even consider the possiblity of a technical fault, even when this was explicitly pointed out to them by the OP. There seems to be failings everywhere.
 

deep south

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I spent many years implementing SAP systems; the core modules are very solid and secure, but I saw many locally developed customisations and add ons that were badly developed with no regard to security and integrity. But that is taking us too much off topic!
 

Skie

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Even stupid things like assuming an event status of 'C' means completed, when it really means Cancelled. Or just looking at the event and not the status. If the event here showed a refund that was aborted due to the inability to generate a ToD and your half-baked onboard system just sees the refund event as the most recent one with no regard to it's status, then you'd have this scenario.

I may once have used the wrong join type and done something similar :oops:
 

robbeech

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Slightly off-topic, but I really hope some the engineers/PMs involved with this feature @ Trainline get the chance to see this thread and then do a proper post-mortem on this:

Incredibly unlikely that anything will change unless forced by someone who can force them to do it (I don’t think there is anyone). They’ve been known to have glaring passenger unfriendly (and some passenger friendly but ones that result in prosecutions) errors before that have stuck around for years and have possibly only been changed as part of a larger change. Some of these changes can yield lower revenue, there seems to be a ban on things like that.
It certainly reads to me that the technical fault was at the Trainline end, but that CrossCountry and TIL did not even consider the possiblity of a technical fault, even when this was explicitly pointed out to them by the OP. There seems to be failings everywhere.

Again, accepting that the concept of a technical fault is indeed possible would be risking a reduction in potential revenue, something to be avoided at all costs. Experience of these cases shows to TIL and XC that there’s a high rate of people that just pay up so they’d be daft to change it.
 

tspaul26

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Costs-wise most courts consider £30 per hour for preparing your case to be reasonable (Might be worth noting how long you spent on each part) so maybe that would be a good ballpark to go for

For most civil cases, the amount to be allowed for a litigant in person’s costs is either proven loss or time reasonably spent at a rate of £19 per hour.
 
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