£10 Admin Fees: Bogus or not?

[Puffing Devil]

I am not clear why compostage (self-stamping) would require more checks. It would just require stamping machines prior to the barriers which would stamp the date and write it to the magstripe. If you don't stamp, the barriers won't open.

Compostage is used successfully in many countries and has been for years.

Oh, that's sooooo 20th Century hard technology. You do realise we're in the electronic age, don't you

 

[beeza1]

How are you going to check tickets thoroughly on a wedged 12-car train during the peaks? If tickets are valid for 3 months many will just travel with what is in effect a 3 month season ticket.

As for dating tickets when you use them take a look at the regular threads we get on here about carnet tickets.

Checking tickets isn't really the passengers problem, it's no different to the current situation regarding the return portion, if the ticket isn't checked the unscrupulous could use it several times.
Regarding carnets, I admit to knowing nothing about them. All I am suggesting is the ability to purchase a ticket without having to specify a date. For example, I have 3 appointments in the next few weeks but I won't know the exact dates until a couple of days before, my origin is unmanned with no TVM, it would be so much easier to buy 3 return tickets while I am in town. I can't book online as I can't collect the tickets, and print at home is not available, so I have to rely on the guard coming round, and if the train is rammed.......

 

[Llanigraham]

I think a perhaps better alternative would be to be able to order a flexible ticket and then have the option to make it become valid upon collection (obviously still retaining the current system of fixed validity). This would give extra flexibility to those who know they will need to travel X times in the coming days/weeks/months but who don't know exactly when.

And how are you going to do that on unmanned or stations with the ticket machine, or for "print at home" or E-tickets?

 

[Puffing Devil]

I think a perhaps better alternative would be to be able to order a flexible ticket and then have the option to make it become valid upon collection (obviously still retaining the current system of fixed validity). This would give extra flexibility to those who know they will need to travel X times in the coming days/weeks/months but who don't know exactly when.

Surely the equivalent of walking up to a TVM or a Booking Office x minutes before your train leaves and......... buying a ticket?

 

[Puffing Devil]

Checking tickets isn't really the passengers problem, it's no different to the current situation regarding the return portion, if the ticket isn't checked the unscrupulous could use it several times.
Regarding carnets, I admit to knowing nothing about them. All I am suggesting is the ability to purchase a ticket without having to specify a date. For example, I have 3 appointments in the next few weeks but I won't know the exact dates until a couple of days before, my origin is unmanned with no TVM, it would be so much easier to buy 3 return tickets while I am in town. I can't book online as I can't collect the tickets, and print at home is not available, so I have to rely on the guard coming round, and if the train is rammed.......

Which is why a good, old fashioned, composter makes sense! No argument about date or chance to re-use a return.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Which is why a good, old fashioned, composter makes sense! No argument about date or chance to re-use a return.

Compostage would allow all returns to be period returns with essentially no risk of fraud, while without the disadvantages of writing it on in pen.

(Though you are actually allowed to write on the Swiss ones in pen if you want!)

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Surely the equivalent of walking up to a TVM or a Booking Office x minutes before your train leaves and......... buying a ticket?

Several stations I travel to and from have TVMs/TOD collection machines but no ticket office. The TVMs are, in my experience, often unable to accept cash or Amex, plus they only sell a limited range of tickets, confusingly labeled. For example, if you want to use split tickets for long journey, but with flexible tickets, this would be really quite useful.

I appreciate this is perhaps a very niche request, but I see no reason why it isn't technically-speaking doable and at least given as an option.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Oh, that's sooooo 20th Century hard technology. You do realise we're in the electronic age, don't you

Go North East had machines in the 90s that stamped a date on and encoded magstripe tickets the first time you used it. You could buy a pack of ten day tickets in advance and the machines would do all the work.

It's mad how much we've gone backwards.

 

[philthetube]

Please don't offer me a job, no hols, no toilet breaks no training no uniform, no heat in the office etc. This statement just goes to demonstrate how much more expensive it is to deal with customer issues than it appears on the surface.

If you look at online transactions plenty issues to sort there as well including checking the issued ticket cannot be used, and other security measures to prevent fraud, I don't need to go on.

You have all those things regardless of whether you're sat there doing a refund, selling a ticket, or picking fluff out of your belly button.

The only cost to the refund process is the lost productivity.

You were saying that if a ticket office employee earns £15 per hour the cost for 12 mins is £3, ignoring all the aforementioned costs, and I forgot to include employers national insurance.

 

[Tetchytyke]

You were saying that if a ticket office employee earns £15 per hour the cost for 12 mins is £3

It is: that's the cost of 12 minutes they could spend doing something else. The cost of lost productivity.

One would hope they wear a uniform for their whole shift, not just at refund time.

 

[AlterEgo]

At the risk of being unpopular, the £10 fee does not seem unreasonable to me for returned paper tickets. This is probably a close approximation to the costs of providing the service - it's not just the wages - there's the office, computing facilities, management time, insurances and many other costs to be included. These are all fixed costs and are not in proportion to the ticket value, meaning a fixed fee is perhaps the fairest way of charging.

Returning an uncollected/unprinted ticket is another matter - there is the cost of writing and maintaining the part of the IT system to permit this, though it is part of a larger system. There are also the finance costs for processing the payment refund. Perhaps a % fee is reasonable here, without a maximum, unless the payment processors have a cap on their fees.

The whole point of the administration fee is to discourage frivolous or low value refunds.

It’s not really about recouping costs.

Same goes for airline tickets - I might lose 10% of a £500 ticket if I cancel it, but it doesn’t cost them £50 to administer my refund.

 

[Clip]

Compostage would allow all returns to be period returns with essentially no risk of fraud, while without the disadvantages of writing it on in pen.

(Though you are actually allowed to write on the Swiss ones in pen if you want!)

So how does your beloved compostage work with BoJ then? The machines would all be set up to stamp the ticket in the same place so you would have to get rid of BoJ or have a ticket that got stamped over the same place making it ineligible.

 

[Puffing Devil]

The whole point of the administration fee is to discourage frivolous or low value refunds.

It’s not really about recouping costs.

Same goes for airline tickets - I might lose 10% of a £500 ticket if I cancel it, but it doesn’t cost them £50 to administer my refund.

It's not the "whole point", it may be part of the rationale for rail tickets. It's up to the business how it charges for its services - you could absorb the refund processing costs into the cost of sales or, as in this case, make the user pay for the service. This may also have the business benefit of reducing claims, or eliminating all below the admin threshold.

Airline tickets are a whole different model where there is no standing room (not even on Ryanair yet). The ticket pricing matrix aims to fill a plane with the highest revenue per seat.

So how does your beloved compostage work with BoJ then? The machines would all be set up to stamp the ticket in the same place so you would have to get rid of BoJ or have a ticket that got stamped over the same place making it ineligible.

It would work exactly as it does now - BOJ spreading over days is such a small number I would suggest that it's not worth worrying about, unless a huge revenue leak is discovered.

 

[Joe Paxton]

I find that the crosscountry online system, which allows a change of dates/times on journeys between two stations without charging the admin fee, is very useful.

(Post #12, way back on the first page)

Agreed, I've found it very useful too. It allows multiple changes too.

Worth noting it only applies to Advance tickets (and only those bought on their website whilst signed in to your account, and not via their app) - it doesn't apply to any other ticket type (e.g. Off-Peak or Anytime).

For straightforward purchases of Advance tickets, the Crosscountry site is now my choice.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So how does your beloved compostage work with BoJ then? The machines would all be set up to stamp the ticket in the same place so you would have to get rid of BoJ or have a ticket that got stamped over the same place making it ineligible.

Stamping the ticket begins its validity (and indicates that it has been used from the station at which it is stamped, so double using a ticket from MKC, say, would be untenable).

There are other options, such as perhaps allowing validity for two days once stamped. Very, very few people make multiple overnight or multi-day breaks of journey. So losing that capability would be minor for most people if it instead meant all return tickets could be period returns, or all singles valid for a month (but two days once stamped).

 

[Clip]

It would work exactly as it does now - BOJ spreading over days is such a small number I would suggest that it's not worth worrying about, unless a huge revenue leak is discovered.

Is it such a small number though - I don't really think it is and seeing how we all know that people already abuse period returns to use them like a season as they don't get checked then I would say it is worth worrying about

Stamping the ticket begins its validity (and indicates that it has been used from the station at which it is stamped, so double using a ticket from MKC, say, would be untenable).

There are other options, such as perhaps allowing validity for two days once stamped. Very, very few people make multiple overnight or multi-day breaks of journey. So losing that capability would be minor for most people if it instead meant all return tickets could be period returns, or all singles valid for a month (but two days once stamped).

Citation needed for your claim of 'very very few'

So now you want a ticket that has longer validity to be reduced even further. Thast going to go down well.​

 

[Tetchytyke]

how we all know that people already abuse period returns to use them like a season

Some sort of compostage would reduce that: every ticket would be marked.

As I said, my local bus company were using technology that stamped an unused magstripe ticket but beeped for a used one 20 years ago.

 

[Clip]

Some sort of compostage would reduce that: every ticket would be marked.

As I said, my local bus company were using technology that stamped an unused magstripe ticket but beeped for a used one 20 years ago.

yes I remember it well but that's different from what is being proposed here of the joys of what they do in Germany/Switzerland so on and so forth ad infinitum

 

[Llanigraham]

So now you want a ticket that has longer validity to be reduced even further. Thast going to go down well.​

And is making ticketing even more complicated!!

I thought people were all for simplifying it..............................seems not!

 

[island]

On the subject of refunds, Interesting how a company may try and fob a customer off if the customer complains and wants their money back... However raise a chargeback dispute and they back down much quicker.

I am not saying they will not make representations to the bank, but it seems like a more fair playing field.

Who makes the final decision with chargeback? Is it ultimately the customers bank who can take money back from the retailer (if so there's a lot of risk involved in accepting card payments).

It ultimately falls to the card scheme (Visa/MasterCard/etc.) to adjudicate, if things get that far.