Newspaper article regarding supposed unfair treatment regarding ticket discrepancy.

[mallard]

Which is more likely, the majority of staff are nasty abusive oiks or that the passenger realises they have done something wrong and then try anything to wriggle out of it to reduce liability? Again, I know where my money lies on this one too.

I think that if a staff member is unreasonable, the passenger is far more likely to make an issue of it (media, this forum, whatever) than if they are reasonable and understanding. I generally believe that the majority of all people (both staff and passengers) are fairly reasonable most of the time.

Of course you get some people attempting to evade fares and then running to the media with a sob-story, but you also get people who have genuine bad experiences with unreasonable (not always their own fault; ticket validity is a very complex area and even the best training will have gaps) staff members. I prefer not to immediately jump to the conclusion that the passenger must be wrong as many appear to.

Then there's the completely unnecessary attempts to smear the passenger such as by questioning her suitability for motherhood as she claims to have left her ill child with relatives; as I pointed out, that's not an easy choice depending on one's employment situation...

 

[najaB]

Saying "wait for the internal investigation" (whose results certainly won't be made public) is basically just an excuse to shut down discussion.

I disagree. Since someone on the board has direct knowledge of what occurred, I can't see any value in the rest of us speculating.

 

[sheff1]

I disagree. Since someone on the board has direct knowledge of what occurred, I can't see any value in the rest of us speculating.

Much of the discussion on here, and other internet fora, is people "speculating" - that is the nature of the beast. The moderators can lock any thread where they feel the speculation has got out of hand. As at least one mod has contributed to this thread then I can only assume they are content.

What I can't see any value in is the posts, which can be guaranteed on any thread which references a newspaper/media story, which state "you weren't there". I am sure the people posting are fully aware they were not there and there is really no need to have "been there" before giving an opinion - if there was then the forum would be rather light on posts.

 

[najaB]

Much of the discussion on here, and other internet fora, is people "speculating" - that is the nature of the beast.

When we don't have a member who is directly involved, I agree. However, in this case we do and so I can't see the point in dozens of 'what if?' and 'maybe this?' posts when we can get the story directly from the horse's mouth. Especially since we're not even trying to provide assistance to someone who's asked for our help.

Naturally, you're more than welcome to disagree and engage in such discussions.

 

[Gareth Marston]

I think that if a staff member is unreasonable, the passenger is far more likely to make an issue of it (media, this forum, whatever) than if they are reasonable and understanding. I generally believe that the majority of all people (both staff and passengers) are fairly reasonable most of the time.

Of course you get some people attempting to evade fares and then running to the media with a sob-story, but you also get people who have genuine bad experiences with unreasonable (not always their own fault; ticket validity is a very complex area and even the best training will have gaps) staff members. I prefer not to immediately jump to the conclusion that the passenger must be wrong as many appear to.

Then there's the completely unnecessary attempts to smear the passenger such as by questioning her suitability for motherhood as she claims to have left her ill child with relatives; as I pointed out, that's not an easy choice depending on one's employment situation...

I use to work in an evidence based environment and quite frankly there is precious little "evidence" in what the lady says in the newspaper her subsequent comments on the comments section of the newspaper online or in her Facebook page. Its mainly uncorroborated allegation, going off at tangents and smokescreen. Do I believe her?

Last Christmas Eve a member of public comes in and alleges that a Conductor confiscated his local railcard which was valid and made him pay full fare. She was rude unreasonable etc etc sound familiar? I should immediately issue him a new railcard FOC. The bloke that was here previous to me would have done he was good chap etc. When did you buy the railcard? I ask. He can't answer apparently the other bloke would know ask him he says, but hes retired and anyway we sell c 1200 of them a year. I explained that it was highly unlikely that a Conductor would confiscate a valid railcard being used correctly. Of course the Conductor is an absolute d head and doesn't know there job I'm just closing ranks blah blah.He gets angry and starts shouting and makes a threat of violence toward the female conductor- from what the guy says I'm pretty sure which Conductor it was I offer to find out from her. He goes off in huff not having got what he was looking for. A couple of days later I get an envelope through from said Conductor with a ripped up out of date railcard in the member of the public's name......

That's a best part of 10 minutes of my life I wont get back all because someone didn't like being caught out over using an out of date £5 Local Railcard and thought he could bully/blag his way to a new one by lying.

Or i can cite the old chestnut of "You've sold me the wrong tickets" . Every AP I sell I print the time off and get the customer to check the dates and times of trains on the printout before i accept payment. Lady came in and said the tickets you gave me to Liverpool the other day were wrong and the conductor made us buy new ones I want the money back. Do you have the tickets with you? No. Can you bring them all in along with the the printout you checked when you purchased and I'll see what i can do? Lady not seen since.....

The older people are not immune either. A very old lady purchased a TOD sale of a senior railcard off peak return from a South Coast Town either Kent or Sussex to a Mid Wales village for her daughter (it was plausible without asking to see evidence of her DOB by the way). It cant be via London, she has railcard (you sure - yes we did this a couple of times) it cant be via London x 6 or 7 . Doable but a right pain adding much journey time and many changes to get to Reading and only a couple of bites of the cherry each weekday not to fall foul of peak restrictions. I try and explain this but shes too busy going on about the cost and it has to be not via London. Anyway a week later shes in (with I assume daughter) the office complaining i sold her a ticket via London and her daughter was made to buy a new ticket. I had made an extra copy of the receipt - (a VJ Restriction Via Birmingham are printed on them) which I kept- sixth sense maybe. Do you have the tickets? No is again the answer, bring them all in and I'll see what I can do. Again nothing heard from since. I can perhaps speculate that she tried to travel on the ticket when restricted or she didn't actually have a railcard but who knows as theirs NO EVIDENCE.

Never take anything verbal at face value.

 

[Romilly]

Just thinking about the same sort of situation as that described in the article linked at #1, rather than the particular case, we have 2 adults and a child with a Family & Friends railcard and tickets for Manchester-Durham-Manchester. Plans change, and the 2 adults without the child (and therefore unable to use the railcard - although a Two Together railcard might be of value) now need to make an extra Durham-Manchester-Durham journey. That will cost them 2 adult return fares. In contrast, the original discounted tickets for the group of 3 will have cost them 1.52 adult return fares.

The ticketing system is not intuitive. Given the original plans, many travellers will see themselves in this situation as completing their original journey, albeit without the child, and then having to plan a new return trip to Durham for themselves, as part of which they will bring the child back with them. In contrast, the best advice ticket-wise is to see the second Durham-Manchester journey as the deferred return leg of the journey on the discounted tickets, with a brand-new adults-only Durham-Manchester-Durham journey in the meantime. Even less intuitively, it is likely to be cheaper if both adults go back to Durham the second time to collect the child, rather than one going back alone. But accessing good and timely advice can be difficult, e.g. if travelling at times when ticket offices are closed (I always found the Durham ticket office very helpful).

And some of that assumes we are talking about flexible return tickets rather than "Advances".

The nature of a Family & Friends railcard is that is cheaper for adults and children to travel together with the discount, even though more people are travelling, than it is for the adults to travel alone without the children. Indeed, the Ts&Cs allow adults travelling with only one child to pay for that child if the child is under 5 in order to pay less overall. With other discounts, such as Groupsave, the position is different: if I have paid 2.25 adult fares for 3 adults to travel together, who loses out if one of the adults is ill on the day and only 2 adults travel at a cost of 2.25 adult fares?

 

[6Gman]

They haven't posted anything to ignore (quite understandably). Tautologies like "there are two sides to every story" don't add anything to the account.

"There are two sides to every story" may be a cliché, but in what way is it a tautology?

 

[Gareth Marston]

Just thinking about the same sort of situation as that described in the article linked at #1, rather than the particular case, we have 2 adults and a child with a Family & Friends railcard and tickets for Manchester-Durham-Manchester. Plans change, and the 2 adults without the child (and therefore unable to use the railcard - although a Two Together railcard might be of value) now need to make an extra Durham-Manchester-Durham journey. That will cost them 2 adult return fares. In contrast, the original discounted tickets for the group of 3 will have cost them 1.52 adult return fares.

The ticketing system is not intuitive. Given the original plans, many travellers will see themselves in this situation as completing their original journey, albeit without the child, and then having to plan a new return trip to Durham for themselves, as part of which they will bring the child back with them. In contrast, the best advice ticket-wise is to see the second Durham-Manchester journey as the deferred return leg of the journey on the discounted tickets, with a brand-new adults-only Durham-Manchester-Durham journey in the meantime. Even less intuitively, it is likely to be cheaper if both adults go back to Durham the second time to collect the child, rather than one going back alone. But accessing good and timely advice can be difficult, e.g. if travelling at times when ticket offices are closed (I always found the Durham ticket office very helpful).

And some of that assumes we are talking about flexible return tickets rather than "Advances".

The nature of a Family & Friends railcard is that is cheaper for adults and children to travel together with the discount, even though more people are travelling, than it is for the adults to travel alone without the children. Indeed, the Ts&Cs allow adults travelling with only one child to pay for that child if the child is under 5 in order to pay less overall. With other discounts, such as Groupsave, the position is different: if I have paid 2.25 adult fares for 3 adults to travel together, who loses out if one of the adults is ill on the day and only 2 adults travel at a cost of 2.25 adult fares?

Given the prices she quotes in newspaper article its AP.

 

[Llanigraham]

The typical attitudes of the railway industry; bash the passenger as much as possible, it's always their fault... Of course, if I were to say anything remotely equivalent to the heaps of unjustified nonsense being posted about this passenger about any particular industry body/business/group, it'd get removed from this forum within seconds for being "libellous".

Really? I see just as much, if not more, bashing of the railway and it's staff on this forum than the other way around, especially by certain members here, who seem to almost revel in it.

And so you know, libel no longer exists legally.

You were not there, so any comment you make is purely speculation.

 

[VauxhallandI]

and you were there were you? No. But I was! As has already been stated by myself there are two sides to this story and I am currently not in a position to comment. I suggest you read the news article along with the posts that have been made in the comments on that article. Then you might get a better understanding of the seriousness of this matter and what actually happened!

had enough of keyboard warriors and generation snowflake as it is without my supposed peers starting their own agenda on here....

I was with you until "generation snowflake"

You've failed my attitude test....

 

[Haywain]

As this is clearly being escalated to some extent within the TOC, gimmea50anyday is wisely keeping quiet on the matter. Where employee/employer relationships are concerned this is always the best way. Therefore we should not expect to know the full story at any time, but should respect the fact the from the side we are not able to hear, there is clearly a very different view of the facts.

 

[mallard]

Really? I see just as much, if not more, bashing of the railway and it's staff on this forum than the other way around, especially by certain members here, who seem to almost revel in it.

Utter tripe. People who say anything "bad" about staff (without a huge amount of "this clearly doesn't apply to all staff" qualification, which should be pretty darned obvious in most cases) are very quickly "spoken to" by the moderators. Happened to me a few years ago, which is why I always make it ridiculously clear that I believe most staff are pretty reasonable most of the time. The moderators don't have time to read context apparently.

Yet in this thread we have people making criminal accusations, questioning fitness as a mother, making wholly unfounded personal insults, etc. about a passenger. Utterly disgraceful.

And so you know, libel no longer exists legally.

No idea what you're referring to there. The Defamation Act 2013 made some important reforms, but it certainly hasn't been abolished.

You were not there, so any comment you make is purely speculation.

And everything I've said about the incident has been clearly indicated to be speculative, using words like "maybe" and "it's possible", etc. What does that have to do with the complete lack of neutrality show here?

(I also wholly disagree with the idea that you have to be present in person at an incident to have an opinion. I've never been present at a public execution; does that mean I'm not allowed to have an opinion on capital punishment?)

 

[najaB]

And everything I've said about the incident has been clearly indicated to be speculative, using words like "maybe" and "it's possible", etc.

Ahem...

Pretty clear that the member of staff did not follow the guidance in the manual then...

 

[mallard]

Ahem...

Maybe a poor choice of phrase, sure. What I meant (and clarified in a later post) was that the account given in the article is clearly incompatible with the secret fares manual's guidance.

 

[MikeWh]

Maybe a poor choice of phrase, sure. What I meant (and clarified in a later post) was that the account given in the article is clearly incompatible with the secret fares manual's guidance.

Which may or may not be because the account in the paper is missing a key detail. Was it the right train?

 

[Gareth Marston]

Posters on the Newspaper Online Forum say she was also wrong train on AP's.

 

[142blue]

I still think Disco Dave is a top name personally

And yes she is trying it on. Got caught chancing it and didn't like the response

 

[Tetchytyke]

Maybe I'm getting old and cynical, but the angrier and more histrionic one's reaction is, the less likely one is to be telling the truth.

And this woman has been pretty histrionic.

That said, anyone using the phrase "generation snowflake" without irony loses all sympathy too. Especially as many of the most self-entitled and arrogant people I've ever met are well north of 55.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

Maybe I'm getting old and cynical, but the angrier and more histrionic one's reaction is, the less likely one is to be telling the truth.

And this woman has been pretty histrionic.

That said, anyone using the phrase "generation snowflake" without irony loses all sympathy too. Especially as many of the most self-entitled and arrogant people I've ever met are well north of 55.

Like like like like like. Quoted for truth.


It is news reports like this one that annoy me - they publish a one-sided story with a big headline, then never follow-it up, particularly if it is later all proven to be false. So readers end up with this view of railway staff as demons enforcing mysterious rules and this encourages them to treat staff like scum when they get in similar encounters.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

I still think Disco Dave is a top name personally

So do I! As it has stuck it seemed apt to use it as my disco trading name. XD

The downside is as my business name is publically advertised on social media along with business contacts details etc makes me easy to find. So when cross referenced with the comments section in the story you should now get a clearer understanding of just how serious this matter has become.

XD

 

[boxy321]

Disco Dave is indeed a great name, John.

How do we book? Do you use the whistle when spinning some top 90's rave tunes?

 

[paddington]

I have got to the point now whereby I prefer the way staff on board airlines treat their customers, with respect.

It's only every other day that we see a newspaper report of "staff on board airlines" NOT "treating their customers with respect". And there are usually two sides to the story too and we rarely hear the second.

Furthermore, such a comparison is slightly meaningless since nobody is meant to get on board an airplane without a valid ticket (I was going to say "impossible to get on a plane without a valid ticket", but that isn't exactly true).

Staff on board airplanes do not check tickets except to make sure that you have got on the correct flight and certainly aren't going to argue with you about whether you were entitled to certain discounts which you may have used.

If you had to exchange flexible tickets for a seat reservation on a specific train, and then your ticket was checked before being permitted to board in all cases, and all tickets are unambiguously valid for every specific train, then there wouldn't be any need for the "disputes" section of this forum.

 

[Haywain]

If you had to exchange flexible tickets for a seat reservation on a specific train, and then your ticket was checked before being permitted to board in all cases, and all tickets are unambiguously valid for every specific train, then there wouldn't be any need for the "disputes" section of this forum.

There would, but we wouldn't be talking about on train staff!

 

[185]

On a Man-Hull some time ago.

Q: Where's the child for the railcard?

A: "In the toilet. Tommy's very sick".

Q. Has he got a T-key, as I've locked both the bogs before leaving Leeds.

A: F________________________________

Q. Have you met Mr. Policeman of Hull?

 

[Fare-Cop]

In 40 plus years experience of the public & railway interface I've yet to find a journalist allowing the truth to get in the way of what they perceive to be a 'good' story.

It's not usually because they write things maliciously, more frequently, if they truly investigated the facts before hitting the keyboard based on a one sided report, they would realise that there isn't a worthwhile story at all and then they might have to go find something else to write about.

 

[DJ_K666]

So do I! As it has stuck it seemed apt to use it as my disco trading name. XD

The downside is as my business name is publically advertised on social media along with business contacts details etc makes me easy to find. So when cross referenced with the comments section in the story you should now get a clearer understanding of just how serious this matter has become.

XD

Me too!

If someone gets on my bus and demands my name, unless in a road incident situation I often say either "D. River", "Michael Mouse" or my favourite: "Name's on the front of the bus"*

*Our buses are named railway loco style with people associated with Brighton. All deceased

 

[6Gman]

Me too!

If someone gets on my bus and demands my name, unless in a road incident situation I often say either "D. River", "Michael Mouse" or my favourite: "Name's on the front of the bus"*

*Our buses are named railway loco style with people associated with Brighton. All deceased

This was, of course, one of the reasons Drivers used to display their PSV Licence badge. "You can have my number, but not my name."

 

[142blue]

In 40 plus years experience of the public & railway interface I've yet to find a journalist allowing the truth to get in the way of what they perceive to be a 'good' story.

It's not usually because they write things maliciously, more frequently, if they truly investigated the facts before hitting the keyboard based on a one sided report, they would realise that there isn't a worthwhile story at all and then they might have to go find something else to write about.

Journalists? The bastion of morality... not sure how you could imply such a thing about them

 

[SouthStand]

Ah yes, the old railway industry response of "it sounds like the customer was treated unfairly, clearly that can't be the case so there must be some information missing..."



Many people do not have understanding employers who will let them take extra days off in those circumstances. Other people are on contracts (such as the so-called "zero hours" contracts) that mean doing so results in significant financial impact. While I believe it's fundamentally wrong to make a mother choose between looking after their ill child and making a rent payment or being able to afford groceries, it's a fact of life for many people in modern Britain.



When I post updates on my life on Facebook, I certainly don't expect media coverage; I'm just letting my friends know what's going on. Happening to have an interested journalist (I assume your incorrect capitalisation has some sort of meaning...) on your friends list is totally different to deliberately "running to the papers".

The typical attitudes of the railway industry; bash the passenger as much as possible, it's always their fault... Of course, if I were to say anything remotely equivalent to the heaps of unjustified nonsense being posted about this passenger about any particular industry body/business/group, it'd get removed from this forum within seconds for being "libellous".

Agreed.

 

[DJ_K666]

This was, of course, one of the reasons Drivers used to display their PSV Licence badge. "You can have my number, but not my name."

Yep. They don't use them now, but they are seen as badges of honour by older drivers.