Unable to collect ticket from Fasticket machine - who do I complain to?

[gingerheid]

Hello

Probably a daft question, and one I thought I knew the answer to, so I'm worried I'm getting fobbed off...

At ten o'clock at night I bought a ticket from Cambridge to London with Cambridge plusbus. I bought it from the Virgin site so I didn't pay Thetrainline's booking fee. The ticket was supposed to be available to pick up two hours later.

I tried to pick it up from the railway station when I was passing two hours and ten minutes later, and spent quarter of an hour repeatedly trying all the machines there; the code simply wasn't working. The only member of staff there after midnight was on the gateline, and he tried it a couple of times too before shrugging his shoulders and giving up.

I took a couple of photos of two machines (one of the fast ticket ones and the NXEA one) refusing to take the code (with the clock visible in the corner of the machines). When I got home I sent these to Virgin's complaints address with a message saying that as I hadn't been able to get the Plusbus ticket I would be needing them to arrange a refund, and asked them how I should go about this.

The next time I was able to try and pick up the ticket was at the railway station in the morning, when it worked, but which meant that I didn't get any use of the plusbus ticket that should have taken me to the station.

They have now forwarded the message to NXEA's complaints address, asking them to "address a problem the customer has had with their fast-ticket machine".

Who is it that should be refunding me? And are delays in tickets being available a recurring problem?

Not a lot at stake in terms of money, obviously, but there's a bigger principle plus the fact that this problem could be stopping people from picking up tickets that they need to make their journey at stake.

 

[AlterEgo]

Virgin will have checked the booking out and found no fault with it. Therefore any fault lies with the provider of the machine, which in this case is NXEA.

Only NXEA are going to be able to resolve the issue, as it's their machine, so your complaint would have been forwarded to them for their attention.

Any refund due in this particular case would be from NXEA.

 

[Lrd]

Who is it that should be refunding me? And are delays in tickets being available a recurring problem?

I'm under the impression that it should be the station operator responsible, Cambridge is NXEA.

Virgin will have simply sent the ticket to the station (or is it somewhere else, as most tickets can be picked up from any station, regardless of where you chose) electronically and then when using the reference code you would be able to collect it. It sounds like there was no connection from the machines to the "control centre" and therefore unable to collect. This is a problem with whoever provides the machines (NXEA).

Hope this makes some sort of sense!

 

[causton]

Well, the tickets are just held in a big database in a 'list' of sorts, and the TVMs (at least, when they're working) - get the data via the Internet. For some reason, the TVM at Brookmans Park had a weird issue where it would take cards and issue tickets just fine (including from my Visa Electron which requires internet authorisation!) .. it would not collect tickets - saying it could not connect to the IP address blahblahetc. Luckily I was not travelling that day and I tweeted FCC about it - it *may* be fixed now :P

 

[DaveNewcastle]

. . . . any fault lies with the provider of the machine, which in this case is NXEA.

The fault does, indeed, appear to be with the equipment, yes.

Any refund due in this particular case would be from NXEA.

Why do you say that?
What relationship does the passenger have with NXEA?
What obligations has NXEA entered into with the passenger?

I'm genuinely puzzled.

 

[causton]

Why do you say that?
What relationship does the passenger have with NXEA?
What obligations has NXEA entered into with the passenger?

I'm genuinely puzzled.

I presume there is a responsibility of NXEA to actually provide the ticket collection facility if AlterEgo says the OP is due a refund!
RE: Relationship with the passenger, the passenger may be travelling with NXEA to London! So there's a relationship - but not necessarily meaning anything.

 

[Jordy]

Well if the passenger has selected to pick up their ticket from Cambridge (an NXEA managed station) - surely there is some kind of requirement for NXEA to provide working facilities for the ticket to be collected

 

[Lrd]

The fault does, indeed, appear to be with the equipment, yes.

Why do you say that?
What relationship does the passenger have with NXEA?
What obligations has NXEA entered into with the passenger?

I'm genuinely puzzled.

The OP bought a Cambridge - London ticket with Cambridge plusbus.

Surely NXEA will receive the money for providing this journey?

 

[DaveNewcastle]

I presume there is a responsibility of NXEA to actually provide the ticket collection facility . . . . .

Yes, I expect so too.

Well if the passenger has selected to pick up their ticket . . . . . requirement for NXEA to provide working facilities . . .

Yes, I' expect that is true too.

Surely NXEA will receive the money for providing this journey?

That, I don't know. But lets assume that they do for he moment.

None of these observations help me to understand how the passenger who entered into a contract with Virgin has any recourse against NXEA.

(I hate analogies, but its late, so please forgive me; When your phone stops working because the XXX component failed, do you claim against the supplier of the XXX component, or the manufacturer, or the seller? Its the same here, isn't it?
The passenger only has a contract with one company - the one (s)he paid.
Everyone else is down the line and its for the seller, Virgin, to make a Counter-claim against the outlets which failed to provide a contracted service, or against an equipment supplier whose equipment is defective.)

Have I missed something here?

 

[RYS]

Surely NXEA will receive the money for providing this journey?

The actual journey provider will most likely be First Capital Connect actually, and I expect the sharing of revenue on Cambridge to London (any route) tickets gives most of it to FCC.

 

[Lrd]

The actual journey provider will most likely be First Capital Connect actually, and I expect the sharing of revenue on Cambridge to London (any route) tickets gives most of it to FCC.

I'm not familiar with the area, just thought NXEA serve Cambridge and London, no idea who supplies the most services etc. Also, I forgot about FCC

 

[gingerheid]

The fault does, indeed, appear to be with the equipment, yes.

Why do you say that?
What relationship does the passenger have with NXEA?
What obligations has NXEA entered into with the passenger?

I'm genuinely puzzled.

I've got the distinct and horrible feeling that the fault was that the booking got delayed in cyber space on the way to the machine, and that nobody will want to take the blame...

And yes, just to murky the issue more, I said London in the loosest sense. It was actually New Southgate that I was travelling to, so it was definitely a FCC journey for which I booked through Virgin a ticket to be picked up from an NXEA machine... plus of course the actual problem was with the bus element of the journey...

My instinct was however that my contract was with Virgin as it was them I paid. Even if NXEA were at fault (which I suspect they weren't), it seems to me like it would still be Virgin that should be dealing with ME.

As I say, it's a principal thing. I paid for a ticket but had to walk to the railway station, so I *should* be getting the money for the ticket back...

I will reply to Virgin and say that matters involving their subcontractor are for them to resolve; I am dealing with them.

 

[embers25]

If you bought the ticket at 10pm and tried to pick it up around 2 hours later you probably fell victim to the midnight problem whereby ticket machines between around 1155pm and 1215am have been known not to let people pick up preordered tickets due to them updating or some such excuse. I've had the same issue at Woking where I was using the last train to London at 0020 and was tried all machines for10minutes until finally at 0018 one started working again. During that period most of the 7 machines would get accept my credit card info before changing their mind and returning to the front screen placing a big red cross through the "pick up preordered tickets" box

 

[AlterEgo]

Dave - you do have a point in that the customer may have no relationship with NXEA. Legally, the onus is on the ticket seller to provide the goods. If postal delivery fails, then the seller must either honour a refund or replacement.

However, rail industry guidelines dictate that in the event of a machine failure at the station, the TOC that owns that machine must provide a refund. (if you screw up, you pay for it)

This is a very common standard procedure that probably occurs 100 times a day in the industry. I am sure the rules are the result of an industry-wide agreement between TOCs to increase confidence in the ToD system.

Bear in mind that the selling TOC (Virgin in this case) have no way of checking machines belonging to NXEA and therefore no way of addressing the complaint properly.

 

[gingerheid]

Update...

I have told Virgin a couple of times that I won't get involved with their dispute with their subcontractor, and they have told me a couple of times that it's nothing to do with them.

NXEA also replied to my original complaint forwarded from Virgin. They've said it wasn't their problem either and have referred me to thetrainline.

 

[richw]

You entered into a contract with virgin, or possibly the provider of their booking agent, it is therefore legally down to whichever of the 2 you entered a contract with,

 

[185]

I would say the blame here lies solely with Virgin, as the TVM was probably working perfectly fine - it's just that the booking was still being processed at the time of collection. Virgin will try blame their contractor, NXEA, everyone including the station cat before they accept that they chose trainline.com to do the work for them - therefore Virgin are still liable.

 

[gingerheid]

This was their last effort:

All Train Operating Companies adhere to a policy of impartial retailing, and therefore are required to retail tickets not only for our own train services but for all other train operating companies within the UK. The “Routes & Stations” section of our website sets out the routes that we operate. For non-Virgin Trains routes we will retail tickets on behalf of the relevant company.

The National Conditions of Carriage states that - ‘A ticket that has been issued to you is evidence of a contract between you and each Train Company whose trains and services you have the right to use. Where the company selling you the ticket is not one of the Train Companies on whose services you are travelling, the seller is acting as agent for the Train Company or Companies in whose trains you are entitled to travel.’ Therefore we cannot comment on matters arising with a National Express East Anglia ticket machine.

Therefore a full refund, as advised by Jason, National Express East Anglia trains need to be contacted directly this why your email was forwarded onto them to respond to you.

Of course the thing about that, were it to be relevant (which I argue it isn't) is that I wasn't travelling by NXEA for my journey and nor was it possible to. Additionally, the part of my journey I'm asking for a refund for wasn't even a train journey!

 

[AlterEgo]

Virgin will have looked into this, and will have found no fault with the booking per se. Otherwise, they'd issue an immediate refund.

There is an IT team which can be contacted by rail staff who will advise the source of the problem (failure of machine to dispense ticket, for example). The NRCoC says that a ticket "is evidence of a contract between you and each Train Company whose trains and services you have the right to use."

By nominating a NXEA station as a place to pick up your ticket, you are entering into an agreement to use their service - their machine.

Clearly their machine has failed to dispense your ticket, and it is therefore NXEA's responsibility to put it right.

Asking a selling agent to resolve a situation where a (possibly competing!) TOC has failed to dispense a ticket, has serious implications for the ToD system. Imagine a case where someone buying a ticket (for example) from Chiltern, for travel on CrossCountry, to be picked up from a Virgin machine at Birmingham New Street, had to force Chiltern to resolve an issue caused by Virgin (a major competitor). The ToD system, which is based on trust and good faith between train operators, would hit serious snags.

 

[Bakerbloke]

The problem I have is that I can never even get to the ticket machines at Cambridge. The queues are too long and they place them in front of the main thoroughfare. At peak times I have to wait upto 30 minutes to get to a machine!

 

[gingerheid]

Bizarrely, on the same day as NXEA told me to get stuffed, they also sent me my money, so all ends happily...ish.

 

[Greenback]

Bizarrely, on the same day as NXEA told me to get stuffed, they also sent me my money, so all ends happily...ish.

The automatic fob off letter creator must have been malfunctioning that day.

 

[AlterEgo]

Bizarrely, on the same day as NXEA told me to get stuffed, they also sent me my money, so all ends happily...ish.

Bizarre that - although they were supposed to "pay up" in any case! I can only imagine someone more senior got involved and sorted it out?

 

[gingerheid]

Who knows.