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SWT - Unable to collect prepaid tickets due to technical problem

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Pumbaa

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SWT help points come through the Wessex Integrated Control Centre. They are only switched over to NRE in times of severe disruption to help manage the load.
 
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jkdd77

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In principle, the OP has a duty to mitigate his/her losses, however, I don't see that contacting the 'Help Point' would have been of the slightest practical help to the OP; any verbal authorisation to travel would have been as much use (or not) to the OP to defending a byelaw 18 prosecution, or appealing a PF to the not-very-independent appeals body, as the infamous "the man on the platform said it was OK".

Furthermore, it is inconceivable that the helpline could have fixed the TVMs remotely, so the OP would have been left with no sensible alternative to buy new tickets and seek to claim them back.

I agree that the OP is entitled to a refund of the additional tickets purchased.
 

455driver

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The help point goes through to the WICC at Waterloo, they could then have asked the OP which train they were catching and inform the guard of the situation.

But hey its in India and they are no use (apparently) so I will just leave it up to you lot that think you know what happens, I am sure you can advise the OP much better than those who do know what actually happens! :roll:
 

maniacmartin

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The help point I used was a Greater Anglia one. Perhaps they do things differently to SWT.
 

talldave

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For future reference, buy from Southern; no refund charges when this happens.
 

Tetchytyke

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The help point goes through to the WICC at Waterloo, they could then have asked the OP which train they were catching and inform the guard of the situation.

Interesting, that's not what happens elsewhere, so that's good. It's also why I asked if it went to NRE.
 

Bletchleyite

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talldave

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It's one thing I can actually praise Southern for. I had exactly the same problem as the OP and a refund is a couple of mouse clicks away with credit card refunded in a few days.
 

radamfi

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Just had a similar problem, again at a SWT station, where the machine would only print out 2 out of my 4 tickets. After printing the 2nd ticket the machine went back to the home screen and the pick up ticket option was greyed out, as it was on the machine next to it. Luckily, the ticket office was open but it took about 20 minutes to get it sorted. Good job I was following my policy of not picking up or buying tickets on the day of travel. In 2014 I shouldn't need to carry printed pieces of paper. DB do mobile phone tickets for most if not all tickets and they don't even allow machine pick up any more.
 

Bletchleyite

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I certainly think it's time to stop pratting about with ITSO for long-distance rail use, and replace it with 2d barcodes, which have the massive advantage of being media-agnostic - they can be printed by ticket machines, at home, shown on mobile screens and so on.

ITSO "collections" will have exactly the same problems as ToD, because the problems with ToD are almost never caused by a problem with the actual printer component, and the rest of the concept is near enough the same.

Neil
 
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talldave

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ITSO "collections" will have exactly the same problems as ToD, because the problems with ToD are almost never caused by a problem with the actual printer component, and the rest of the concept is near enough the same.

Neil

50% of my ToD failures have been down to this. And once the machine "thinks" it's printed your tickets, your booking is gone and you're stuffed.
 

Bletchleyite

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50% of my ToD failures have been down to this.

Really? I don't use ToD often, I mainly buy walk-ups on the day, mostly from the machine. But I don't recall there ever being a printer problem with any ticket I have bought from a machine that made the ticket unusable or caused it not to issue. The only ticket machine issues I have noted are being completely out of order, a failed card reader (which might affect ToD but not cash purchases), and the machine working but not being online to the ToD computer so no ToD option available at all.

Neil
 

radamfi

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You can't take advantage of the various cashback or discount offers, such as TopCashBack, East Coast Rewards or Nectar points through First Greater Western unless you use TOD. And unless you use certain TOC machines (for example Southern) you can't buy your ticket from the machines unless the journey starts at that station.
 

talltim

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Just had a similar problem, again at a SWT station, where the machine would only print out 2 out of my 4 tickets. After printing the 2nd ticket the machine went back to the home screen and the pick up ticket option was greyed out, as it was on the machine next to it. Luckily, the ticket office was open but it took about 20 minutes to get it sorted.

i would imagine something went wrong with the TOD database or the connection to is after printing the first tickets, hence the one next also being down. When you went to the ticket office did the system how you as having had the missing tickets?
 

radamfi

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i would imagine something went wrong with the TOD database or the connection to is after printing the first tickets, hence the one next also being down. When you went to the ticket office did the system how you as having had the missing tickets?

The ticket office said I was still logged into the system so couldn't immediately print them like normal but after a while seemed to find a way around it. They cancelled the tickets that had already been printed and printed all four of them again.
 

talldave

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Really? I don't use ToD often, I mainly buy walk-ups on the day, mostly from the machine. But I don't recall there ever being a printer problem with any ticket I have bought from a machine that made the ticket unusable or caused it not to issue. The only ticket machine issues I have noted are being completely out of order, a failed card reader (which might affect ToD but not cash purchases), and the machine working but not being online to the ToD computer so no ToD option available at all.

Neil

I use ToD a couple of times a week. In the case of my printer failure episode, the tickets had printed but had jammed on the eject from the printer (still a printer failure in my book!). The helpful staff at Gatwick did eventually open up the machine and recover my tickets (noting with interest that I was a "split ticket" expert!)
 
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