Charged excess fare due to wrong advice

[Rileym99]

Hello,

On 23 april 2015 my wife purchased a ticket from Baldock to Coventry for the 14:52 service departing on 24 april, coming back 26 april. She asked the ticket seller for advice on which train to catch to arrive by about 17:00 and was recommended to purchase an off-peak ticket for £61.90 for the 14:52 service. On arriving at Euston to catch her connecting train at 16:03 she was informed that her off-peak ticket was invalid after 16:00 and that she would have to wait for three hours for an off-peak service, or pay an excess of £74. As she had a meeting scheduled she had no choice but to pay.

In my mind she was given incorrect advice by the ticket seller. If she had known this she could have taken an earlier train and paid the fare of £61.90. However, Thameslink state:

"The national ticketing system by its very nature is complex, however the vast majority of customer interactions are incident free. *It is also the case that at the end of every process there is a person and we can all make mistakes or even interpret an instruction differently. As with all retail purchases, we always recommend that customers check they have the right product, or in our case ticket, before they travel and if a mistake has been made it can be rectified there and then. There are a number of ways to check ticket validity, one being the National Rail Enquiries website which you have referenced in previous correspondence.

While I appreciate you feel a refund is due, you have paid the correct fare for the train you travelled on and I regret no refund is due."

Who is in the right here please?

Thanks for your help,
Matthew

 

[najaB]

Who is in the right here please?

Unless your wife can prove that she was given that advice then Thameslink are in the right.

 

[ainsworth74]

Unless your wife can prove that she was given that advice then Thameslink are in the right.

Thameslink do not appear to be disputing that the advice given was incorrect. They appear to be stating that the passenger should have checked the validity of the ticket they bought from a ticket office in order to ensure that it was valid on the journey they had told the ticket office they wanted to make. As the passenger did not, in their opinion, it is not their job to issue a refund.

 

[richw]

On the other hand if a staff member is unable to sell a valid ticket for a desired service, how are normal run of the mill passengers supposed to know?
Where I live we have no afternoon peak, so many people with no knowledge may assume this to be a standard situation with only peak being the morning peak.

 

[najaB]

Thameslink do not appear to be disputing that the advice given was incorrect.

I read it as they were dodging the question of if they had or had not given any advice in the first place.

They appear to be stating that the passenger should have checked the validity of the ticket they bought from a ticket office in order to ensure that it was valid on the journey they had told the ticket office they wanted to make. As the passenger did not, in their opinion, it is not their job to issue a refund.

Reading it that way, if they admit they gave the advice, their answer is a bit underhanded since the ticket office is supposed to be one place that you go to check the validity of your ticket!

 

[sheff1]

There is clearly more correspondence here from both sides which we are not party to. In view of that it is not possible to answer the question who is in the right, although no doubt that will not stop some people giving an 'answer' .

 

[CyrusWuff]

Looking at the restriction details, getting a train at 1452 from Baldock makes it impossible to comply with the restriction from Euston, which kicks in at 1500!

 

[Rileym99]

Thanks for the replies so far.

My wife is adamant that she took their advice and took the 14:52 train, paying the £61.90 fare. So it's a question of her word versus the word of the person that sold them the ticket.

I believe she should not have had to pay the excess, since she was acting under the advice of the ticket seller. They sold her a ticket that was not valid as advised. She could have taken a different train if given the correct advice and paid £61.90. However, Thameslink are refusing to budge. I agree with najaB that thry can hardly tell her to check their advice when she asked for their advice in the first place.

As we have emailed them three times about this now, do you think this is a case that Transport Focus could help with?

 

[richw]

I had a similar issue with FGW where I took advise from member of staff to find out it's incorrect information and to be hit with a £10 admin fee despite being assured by their social media team and call centre I would not be charged the fee, their front line staff refused to waive the fee.
I got fobbed off by initial letter of complaint, so I emailed the CEO with a strongly worded letter, which got results. The Ceo won't deal with this himself but a senior manager typically deals with a complaints sent to ceo as high profile. It shouldn't take much to find the ceo email address.

 

[FenMan]

I'm struggling to see what loss has been incurred by the OP's wife.

She needed to be in Coventry in time for a 1700 meeting, therefore the Anytime fare was appropriate. Incorrectly, she was sold the Off Peak fare and this was subsequently excessed to the Anytime fare at Euston. So she ended up paying the correct fare for her itinerary. It's regrettable that an incorrect ticket was sold in the first instance, but she was not put in a worse position as a consequence.

I suppose there could be an argument that she would not have used the railway for this journey if she'd known that an Anytime fare would apply, but, given that she had already travelled to the Baldock ticket office, this would be unlikely to sway the TOC's view.

 

[najaB]

I'm struggling to see what loss has been incurred by the OP's wife.

The OP stated that travelling on an earlier train was possible.

 

[ainsworth74]

I'm struggling to see what loss has been incurred by the OP's wife.

She needed to be in Coventry in time for a 1700 meeting, therefore the Anytime fare was appropriate. Incorrectly, she was sold the Off Peak fare and this was subsequently excessed to the Anytime fare at Euston. So she ended up paying the correct fare for her itinerary. It's regrettable that an incorrect ticket was sold in the first instance, but she was not put in a worse position as a consequence.

I suppose there could be an argument that she would not have used the railway for this journey if she'd known that an Anytime fare would apply, but, given that she had already travelled to the Baldock ticket office, this would be unlikely to sway the TOC's view.

The ticket was purchased on 23 April and travel was on 24 April. The OP has told us that the wife could have taken an earlier train on the day of travel therefore if the ticket office had given the correct information regarding ticket validity she would have been able to take an appropriate connecting service for the Off-Peak ticket rather than one that was incorrect and not incurred an extra charge.

 

[Flamingo]

did the ticket-seller make a mistake? If yes, then a letter to the TOC explaining what happened giving details of time served etc. should have got some result, as they can investigate it, and refund / apologise as appropriate.

Was the OP's wife correctly charged? Also yes. Other staff have no idea what the conversation was, or even if there was one. If there were reservations for the trains involved it would be different, but if there were not, then staff were acting in line with NRCoC.

 

[tony6499]

Looks an obvious mistake, it's surprising that Thameslink are arguing about it

 

[Bletchleyite]

Perhaps about time when anyone bought an Off Peak ticket from a ticket office, the printer also produced an A4 sheet detailing validity to avoid any such confusion?

 

[najaB]

Perhaps about time when anyone bought an Off Peak ticket from a ticket office, the printer also produced an A4 sheet detailing validity to avoid any such confusion?

That's a lotta paper that probably won't be needed.

What I don't understand is why the the Off-Peak ticket was saleable for that itinerary - sounds like either the person in the ticket office tried to do something clever or there's a mistake in Thameslink's ticketing system.

 

[Qwerty133]

I'm wondering if you approached Thameslink, in lets say, a less than polite way, and that is why they are sticking exactly to the bare minimum they have to offer. It just makes no sense that they would decline to refund in this situation if it had been approached reasonably, by a person that they have had no prior dealings with, especially as less clear cut cases have been refunded in the past.

 

[Andrewlong]

It's if a business trip I would expense the excess and get that written to the CEO!

 

[FenMan]

The ticket was purchased on 23 April and travel was on 24 April. The OP has told us that the wife could have taken an earlier train on the day of travel therefore if the ticket office had given the correct information regarding ticket validity she would have been able to take an appropriate connecting service for the Off-Peak ticket rather than one that was incorrect and not incurred an extra charge.

Apologies. I must have had a brainfade - not spotting the different dates.

 

[cjmillsnun]

Perhaps about time when anyone bought an Off Peak ticket from a ticket office, the printer also produced an A4 sheet detailing validity to avoid any such confusion?

People buy tickets with not much time before the train. If they had to wait for the sheet..

A) queues would form very quickly

B) people would miss their trains

Best not to make buying tickets a lengthier process. It already takes longer than it used to when the railways used APTIS.

What would be better is a consistent definition of the times that off-peak and peak tickets are allowed, so that the booking clerks know restrictions

 

[34D]

I guess there were no reservations or a printed itinerary?

The only way I would book the day before is to get a reserved seat.

Even if your wife is truthful, the staff will just close ranks and say that they advised that the last train from baldock that validly connected into the 14:43 eus-cov, factoring the stipulated 35 minutes to do kings cross to Euston, was the 12:52 from Baldock.

This is yet another example of why a website is better than a person, sadly

 

[185]

I think if the purchase time is close to the time of journey started, I would be happy the booking office had probably sold it in error. I would expect if booking office were asked to sell a ticket that they knew not to be valid for immediate journeys, the restrictions advised stamp to be used.

As the customer states, they would have travelled earlier, had they known the ticket not to be valid on Virgin's services upon reaching Euston in a reasonable time from Baldock. My view, some will disagree, that Thameslink have albeit unintentionally caused a loss and if their CS throw it out to consider approaching T/Focus.

 

[Camden]

"The national ticketing system by its very nature is complex, however the vast majority of customer interactions are incident free. *It is also the case that at the end of every process there is a person and we can all make mistakes or even interpret an instruction differently. As with all retail purchases, we always recommend that customers check they have the right product, or in our case ticket, before they travel and if a mistake has been made it can be rectified there and then. There are a number of ways to check ticket validity, one being the National Rail Enquiries website which you have referenced in previous correspondence."

I would take them to task with their own words here. How many times, exactly, does this TOC think people should have to double check? And how many people does this TOC think people should have to consult? If you can't rely on the advice given by its own experts, then whose advice can you rely on?

When a system is complex, as they themselves acknowledge, how is a customer (a layperson) to know whether they have "the right product" or not, except by seeking such expert advice? They sought expert advice and thus had every reasonable right to expect that they had "the right product", and certainly far more reasonable right to an expectation of being correct than simply relying on one's own layperson interpretation of whatever information is able to be dug out by themselves.

If the circs are as described, I would argue that the customer has clearly fulfilled any obligation to "check they have the right product" by seeking such expert advice in the first place.

They admit "we can all make mistakes", and so if their staff have made such a mistake they should issue a refund of the un-necessary fare paid and order re-training for the staff.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That's a lotta paper that probably won't be needed.

Fair point. But perhaps where a passenger enquires about it (rather than just walking up and asking for a specific ticket) it would make sense.

What I don't understand is why the the Off-Peak ticket was saleable for that itinerary - sounds like either the person in the ticket office tried to do something clever or there's a mistake in Thameslink's ticketing system.

...or if an itinerary is used, that should perhaps be printed out for them. Then there's evidence the ticket was sold for a given purpose. I wonder if one wasn't in this case.

 

[rs101]

Just a thought.. Why not got to the same ticket office and ask a ticket for travel at the same times? If they offer you the same, invalid, ticket then that surely adds weight to your claim of being wrongly advised.

 

[David Goddard]

FGW's system will print an itinerary on the thermal receipt printer. No A4 paper required and it comes off as quick as the sales receipt.

 

[swj99]

She was originally sold a ticket £61.90 and told this was valid on a particular service.
I would argue that she is entitled to rely upon the information given to her by the ticket seller as being correct, and that the information she was given formed part of the contract she had with the train operating company. The ticket seller and his / her employer owes a duty of care to give the correct information. Their failure to do so may render them liable in the tort of breach of contract and also negligence. You've asked nicely, they said no.

I suspect Thameslink may be missing the point, intentionally or otherwise, when they say,

While I appreciate you feel a refund is due, you have paid the correct fare for the train you travelled on and I regret no refund is due.

because they are likely to be in breach of the original contract she had with them, which was that for £61.90 she could use the 14:52 service. She was later told that in order to use the service she had already paid £61.90 for, she would have to pay an additional £74. This means they have failed to perform their part of the contract on the terms originally agreed.

If I was in that situation, I'd send them a letter before action, and unless their reply contained a refund cheque, I'd issue county court proceedings against them, using Money Claim Online, for the additional expense I'd been put to (ie the excess of £74), and let a District Judge decide, unless of course they saw sense before it went to trial and paid. One interesting aspect of using the County Court for small claims such as this, is that each side pays their own costs, other than the court fees paid initially by the Claimant, but which are added to the judgment debt if the claim is successful. But if the claimant is not successful, they are not liable for the Defendant's costs of defending the case, such as their legal representation on the day of the actual trial.

 

[bb21]

Before we rush to the recommendation of taking the company to court, how would the OP demonstrate, and more importantly prove, that incorrect advice was given? Have Thameslink accepted that the clerk made a mistake?

 

[Greenback]

This is a tricky one in my view. Thameslink seem to admit to the possibility of a mistake having ben made, but then stress that the passenger should double check in case such a thing happens.

In a sense, they are correct. It is the responsibility of the traveller to ensure that they have been issued the right ticket, given the correct change, or whatever following a transaction. Yet I also think that passengers should be able to rely on the information given to them by a ticket clerk, especially when they have asked some very specific questions.

The devil, as is often the case, is in proving what happened and what was said.

I would make another attempt with the TOC, pointing out that the customer asked for specific advice and acted in good faith on the information that she received. I'd also point out that the decision that was reached was entirely due to the information she was given, and that if she had, in fact, been provided with accurate information she would have decided to travel earlier to save money.

 

[Starmill]

A follow-up letter, if you have thus far only had a single exchange with them, may yeild results. Perhaps ask if they are clear that the incorrect advice was given and that you are clear that your wife did fulfill her obligations, and imply politely that you aren't going to back down? You could also call, quoting your case reference (maybe say that you think there was some 'misunderstanding' by the person who originally dealt with the case) and ask see if they will agree for the case to be reviewed by a customer relations manager. Often CR departments will fob anyone off at the first pass, having a second go might help. If it doesn't there's other advice in this thread you may move on to. I wouldn't let it go though.