Blinkbonny
Member
- Joined
- 16 Mar 2018
- Messages
- 350
On the 18th March I was travelling from Coventry to Liverpool on an Advance Single for a very reasonable Senior Discounted £6.95. I travelled, as per ticketing, Coventry to New Street (WMR). Virgin from New Street to Crewe, and then was due a forty minute wait for a connecting Virgin Euston to Lime Street - this presumably being the reason the fare was so cheap in the first place.
It was of course in the middle of the "Beast From The East", and was in fact the coldest day of the year. The Euston Train was delayed by forty minutes because, as the announcement put it, "the weather had prevented Staff reaching the Depots."
As you can appreciate, Crewe Station and its environs on the coldest day of the year and on a Sunday to boot is not exactly a favourite spot to while away the time. Forty minutes was bad enough, the extra forty tortuous. I wasn't allowed on the intervening WM service to Liverpool and eventually arrived at Lime Street 35 minutes late. Not to worry, I naively told myself, at least I'll be able to treat myself to a decent cup of coffee from the refund of one of the clearest Delay Repays I'm likely to encounter.
Two days later (20th March) I put in a claim for a modest £3.50 refund with a
copy of the relevant tickets and Crewe to Liverpool train booking. Astonishingly, all that
happened was somebody at Virgin gave a quick glance at the journey
details, saw that it began with West Midlands Railways and replied that it
was not their responsibility and they'd forwarded it to WMR.
"Dear Customer,
Many thanks for your e-mail.
I am incredibly sorry to learn of the problems that you encountered during
your recent journey. I can confirm that this service was operated by West
Midlands Railway, and as such your email has been forwarded to them so they
can respond in due course. Should you wish to contact them in the meantime,
you can do so by emailing [email protected] or by phoning
03333110039.
Thank you for taking the time to contact us.
Virgin Trains Customer Resolutions Centre"
I immediately explained to them by online contact of 22nd March that this surely was not a correct response, as I only travelled 20 minutes with WMR from Coventry to Birmingham on a train that ran completely to time, and the delay was at Crewe. This mail was acknowledged but I heard nothing further, despite a promise that I would.
Eventually (16th April) I received a mail from WMR taking the not unnatural position that
the late-running of the Virgin Crewe to Liverpool service was no concern of theirs. They declined to deal with my claim and told me they had forwarded it back to Virgin.
After receiving this I mailed Virgin again on the 19th April, uploading a photograph of my tickets for a third time, again explained the situation and expressed my disappointment how such a simple matter had been allowed to drag on like this. This letter was acknowledged but never replied to.
Indeed I heard nothing more until the 12 May when I received the following curious missive:
"Dear blinky,
We understand the inconvenience you have faced due to the delay/cancellation of your scheduled train. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.
I would like to inform you that as your journey was delayed and your refund request is due to delayed service. Since the tickets is used you need to make a delay repay claim with the Customer Relations Team of the relevant train operating company. For your future reference you can also fill in the delay repay form available on the website of the train operating company's.
I have started that process for you by forwarding your claim onto Virgin Trains West Coast Customer Relation and you should expect to hear from a member of their team in the next 28 days.
If you would like to contact them directly in the meantime you can do so using the following contact details.
Email: [[email protected] ]
I just about managed to follow what this was trying to say, but found it of no help to me whatsoever, and I'm still not actually sure what contact of mine it was replying to. My initial claim? One of my two follow-up mails? Or WMR's forwarded claim? Who knows!
After again hearing nothing further at all I decided it was time for me to be justifiable angry at this appalling service and wrote again on the 28th May, enquiring on how to escalate my complaint:
"...as I have heard nothing further from anybody and as I have since read that the maximum time to resolve these issues is supposed to be six weeks, I now wish to take this further.
It is astonishing to me that I have to go through all this effort for such a modest amount and for such a straightforward event as an obviously late-running Virgin Train. I have been put to hours of effort now in order to chase £3.50 and it has reached the point where the money is not the issue.
I understand that there is a body known as Passenger Focus who will deal with complaints such as this and must ask you how I should go about contacting them.
Is it something that I have to do through you? If so please let me have the procedural details.
Thank you"
I thought that this might spur them into action, but of course not a bit of it. I have had no response at all apart from an auto-acknowledgement. Three months after my journey I still await this mythical £3.50 and am fully expecting to be told that my claim has expired for being too late!
I've now reached the stage of course where I would regard the simple payment to me of £3.50 as a very poor outcome, but I suspect it is the best I can hope for.
I am relatively new to all this. Is this par for the course?
It was of course in the middle of the "Beast From The East", and was in fact the coldest day of the year. The Euston Train was delayed by forty minutes because, as the announcement put it, "the weather had prevented Staff reaching the Depots."
As you can appreciate, Crewe Station and its environs on the coldest day of the year and on a Sunday to boot is not exactly a favourite spot to while away the time. Forty minutes was bad enough, the extra forty tortuous. I wasn't allowed on the intervening WM service to Liverpool and eventually arrived at Lime Street 35 minutes late. Not to worry, I naively told myself, at least I'll be able to treat myself to a decent cup of coffee from the refund of one of the clearest Delay Repays I'm likely to encounter.
Two days later (20th March) I put in a claim for a modest £3.50 refund with a
copy of the relevant tickets and Crewe to Liverpool train booking. Astonishingly, all that
happened was somebody at Virgin gave a quick glance at the journey
details, saw that it began with West Midlands Railways and replied that it
was not their responsibility and they'd forwarded it to WMR.
"Dear Customer,
Many thanks for your e-mail.
I am incredibly sorry to learn of the problems that you encountered during
your recent journey. I can confirm that this service was operated by West
Midlands Railway, and as such your email has been forwarded to them so they
can respond in due course. Should you wish to contact them in the meantime,
you can do so by emailing [email protected] or by phoning
03333110039.
Thank you for taking the time to contact us.
Virgin Trains Customer Resolutions Centre"
I immediately explained to them by online contact of 22nd March that this surely was not a correct response, as I only travelled 20 minutes with WMR from Coventry to Birmingham on a train that ran completely to time, and the delay was at Crewe. This mail was acknowledged but I heard nothing further, despite a promise that I would.
Eventually (16th April) I received a mail from WMR taking the not unnatural position that
the late-running of the Virgin Crewe to Liverpool service was no concern of theirs. They declined to deal with my claim and told me they had forwarded it back to Virgin.
After receiving this I mailed Virgin again on the 19th April, uploading a photograph of my tickets for a third time, again explained the situation and expressed my disappointment how such a simple matter had been allowed to drag on like this. This letter was acknowledged but never replied to.
Indeed I heard nothing more until the 12 May when I received the following curious missive:
"Dear blinky,
We understand the inconvenience you have faced due to the delay/cancellation of your scheduled train. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.
I would like to inform you that as your journey was delayed and your refund request is due to delayed service. Since the tickets is used you need to make a delay repay claim with the Customer Relations Team of the relevant train operating company. For your future reference you can also fill in the delay repay form available on the website of the train operating company's.
I have started that process for you by forwarding your claim onto Virgin Trains West Coast Customer Relation and you should expect to hear from a member of their team in the next 28 days.
If you would like to contact them directly in the meantime you can do so using the following contact details.
Email: [[email protected] ]
I just about managed to follow what this was trying to say, but found it of no help to me whatsoever, and I'm still not actually sure what contact of mine it was replying to. My initial claim? One of my two follow-up mails? Or WMR's forwarded claim? Who knows!
After again hearing nothing further at all I decided it was time for me to be justifiable angry at this appalling service and wrote again on the 28th May, enquiring on how to escalate my complaint:
"...as I have heard nothing further from anybody and as I have since read that the maximum time to resolve these issues is supposed to be six weeks, I now wish to take this further.
It is astonishing to me that I have to go through all this effort for such a modest amount and for such a straightforward event as an obviously late-running Virgin Train. I have been put to hours of effort now in order to chase £3.50 and it has reached the point where the money is not the issue.
I understand that there is a body known as Passenger Focus who will deal with complaints such as this and must ask you how I should go about contacting them.
Is it something that I have to do through you? If so please let me have the procedural details.
Thank you"
I thought that this might spur them into action, but of course not a bit of it. I have had no response at all apart from an auto-acknowledgement. Three months after my journey I still await this mythical £3.50 and am fully expecting to be told that my claim has expired for being too late!
I've now reached the stage of course where I would regard the simple payment to me of £3.50 as a very poor outcome, but I suspect it is the best I can hope for.
I am relatively new to all this. Is this par for the course?
