Shrewsbury to Birmingham Advance not valid?

[Wolfie]

No doubt when you eventually get an email back from TfW. The customer services will say the staff member was correct with the first response (after-all, railway staff never make mistakes ), and as a "goodwill" gesture will refund you the £4.25 ticket just this one time.

No mention of refunding the extra ticket you were forced to purchase due to the staff being poorly trained (I've had experience with the staff at Shrewsbury when they tried to claim a "Explore Wales" rover wasn't valid there as "Shrewsbury is in England"). If the railway industry was focused on providing a good customer service for when things go wrong they would offer you decent compensation to say sorry, i.e. £50 cash.

Either that or the response will completely ignore any points mentioned, and go on about something about Covid. Or will blame whatever website you used to purchase the ticket as being wrong (assuming it wasn't purchased directly from the TfW website)

The response to that level of BS is MCOL. Sue them every bloody time. £35 court costs payable by them. Eventually the message will sink in.....

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Feb 2022 ==

It was definitely breach of contract. In addition to the minimum fare not applying to advance tickets, the advance ticket was sold in conjunction with an itinerary so should have been accepted on that basis too.

Absolutely

 

[Haywain]

Careful how you word it though else they’ll stick together like the family they are.

“I have an advance for xxxx train between A and B priced at £y but I notice the railcard has a minimum fare. Can I assume that doesn’t apply to this ticket? Thanks”

Would likely yield a positive result where they would say yes it’s valid.

“I have an advance for xxxx train between A and B priced at £y but the staff at the gateline and the staff in the ticket office said it can’t be valid as there is a minimum fare on the railcard. I’ve had to buy a new ticket”

Would likely yield the same result but there’s is a greater than 0 chance that if the person handling the social media doesn’t know they’ll revert to siding with the railway, and won’t want to get their colleagues into trouble so may back them up. It’s unlikely but it’s possible.

I'd be more inclined to go for something like: 'Can you confirm that the 16-25 Railcard minimum fare of £12 does not apply to Advance tickets?'

 

[Jason12]

The response to that level of BS is MCOL.

I hope that's not a suggestion that the OP should commence court proceedings at this stage. The court (even the online version) will expect the OP to have complied with Civil Procedure Rules.

Resorting to MCOL before sending a letter before claim and offering to resolve the issue through e.g. the Ombudsman may mean the claim is rejected by the court. If that was the case the OP would stand to lose the £35 court fee and may have to pay the defendant's costs.

I'm sure the experts here could advise the OP on drafting a suitable letter before claim.

 

[Wolfie]

I hope that's not a suggestion that the OP should commence court proceedings at this stage. The court (even the online version) will expect the OP to have complied with Civil Procedure Rules.

Resorting to MCOL before sending a letter before claim and offering to resolve the issue through e.g. the Ombudsman may mean the claim is rejected by the court. If that was the case the OP would stand to lose the £35 court fee and may have to pay the defendant's costs.

I'm sure the experts here could advise the OP on drafting a suitable letter before claim.

I absolutely agree. On the other hand TOCs which churn out BS with the sole aim of deflecting people from their rightful entitlements deserve absolutely everything that they get. For eight years of my life, sad though it be, l lived and breathed the CPR....

 

[robbeech]

The response to that level of BS is MCOL. Sue them every bloody time. £35 court costs payable by them. Eventually the message will sink in.....

No it won’t because for everyone person willing to go this far (having failed at the civil stage) they’ll have made thousands in unauthorised revenue by doing this.

I'd be more inclined to go for something like: 'Can you confirm that the 16-25 Railcard minimum fare of £12 does not apply to Advance tickets?'

Much much better wording and simpler too.

I absolutely agree. On the other hand TOCs which churn out BS with the sole aim of deflecting people from their rightful entitlements deserve absolutely everything that they get. For eight years of my life, sad though it be, l lived and breathed the CPR....

Then I suspect you know how much additional persuasion is required to bring a case against the railway vs the railway bringing a case against a passenger.

 

[Wolfie]

No it won’t because for everyone person willing to go this far (having failed at the civil stage) they’ll have made thousands in unauthorised revenue by doing this.


Much much better wording and simpler too.


Then I suspect you know how much additional persuasion is required to bring a case against the railway via the railway bringing a case against a passenger.

Re your last para until the railway starts facing a multiplicity of class actions. Frankly TOCs deserve the attentions of lots of ambulance chasing lawyers. A match made in heaven!

 

[Jason12]

A select group of TOCs are facing collective actions.

It remains to be seen how long the process will take and whether either action is successful.

 

[chris_in_salop]

Obviously this was incompetence, but it's a shame, as the station staff at Shrewsbury (ticket office, gateline, platforms) do generally seem polite, friendly and customer-focussed.

 

[trainophile]

I invariably find the TfW Twitter team helpful and knowledgeable, so nothing to lose by a polite approach to them in the first instance, assuming the OP has a Twitter account.

 

[ExpressTrain]

A tweet to Tfw explaining the situation and making them back you up as correct and their staff wrong in the public domain is always nice too.

I invariably find the TfW Twitter team helpful and knowledgeable, so nothing to lose by a polite approach to them in the first instance, assuming the OP has a Twitter account

I wasn't thinking on my feet enough to tweet TFW at the time, but I did it on the train into Birmingham, asking them to confirm about the minimum fare and how I could claim back for the £12 ticket. They confirmed the minimum fare doesn't apply to advances and gave the email so they could investigate. Definitely one to keep to hand for future journeys. https://twitter.com/tfwrail/status/1488426716397723653?s=20&t=smuR6-qr0OE0CVf2OWtiQg

It's a journey I'm going to make roughly once a week, going into the office in Birmingham - I can do the other days at home. Sure, I could buy an anytime day return for £12.00 TFW only or £12.70 any permitted but I'd rather save my money with advances where available. I know I'll be getting the same time trains every week anyway. Now I know how useless some of the staff can be, I'll have to be smarter and book direct on TFW's website rather than with Avanti and start printing the confirmation and have the tweet to hand, then I've got something to show them.

I also can't help but wonder how many other people got wrongly caught out, just on that one day. Out of interest, I was looking tonight and it seems that TFW sell advances for pretty much all of their trains until the night before and from Shrewsbury, with a railcard places like Birmingham, Manchester, Aberystwyth etc all have advances for less than £12.

 

[robbeech]

They could make hundreds of pounds per day doing this, or yours might be a one off, or anywhere inbetween.

If I was going to buy the flexible fare I’d buy the any permitted as this would split the revenue between TFW and West Midlands Trains (and possibly but unlikely Avanti) and give you more options for a similar price else TFW would be getting all of the extra money for their appalling behaviour.

If advances work for you you should definitely continue to use them and complain each time you have issues.

 

[ExpressTrain]

Had a reply from TFW customer services today. They confirmed I was correct and apologised for the staff not knowing the policy for advances. Also said they’d refund me (I’m assuming they mean for the £12 ticket but I’ll keep my eye on this and chase if it comes out wrong). Shame it’s taken nearly a month but at least I’ll be getting the money back with no arguing!