Asked for further details regarding Delay Repay claim

[arb]

Some time ago I submitted a delay repay claim to SouthEastern for a journey from Maidstone Barracks to Grove Park, via Strood, made on Saturday April 12th. I had to chase up SouthEastern in order to get any response (hence why this is so far in the past!) but they've now eventually replied saying that my journey times do not appear on their systems, and asked me to supply "more details on the journey" (but they don't say what!), at which point they will "investigate immediately".

Does anybody know what kind of information they might be looking for? Is anybody on here able to verify old journey times to make sure I've not mistakenly got something wrong in the details below that I've already given them?

The details of the journey (all of which I have already included as a covering note with the original claim) were Maidstone Barracks to Grove Park, via Strood, on Saturday April 12th, which showed up in journey planners as:

• Maidstone Barracks to Strood, depart 18:35, arrive 18:56
• Strood to Lewisham, depart 19:05, arrive 19:55
• Lewisham to Grove Park, depart 20:22, arrive 20:29

The 19:05 service from Strood was delayed by approximately 30 minutes, but was changed to not call at all stations between Strood and London, presumably to let it make back some time. Therefore I had to get the 19:35 train from Strood instead, which was running a few minutes late, resulting in an overall delay to my journey that was within the 30-59 minute range.

The only thing I can think of that I didn't mention with my original claim is that I acutally did the Maidstone to Strood leg earlier in the day, with a break of journey at Strood, so I didn't actually travel on the 18:35-18:56 train. I didn't mention this originally because doing so seemed to be an unnecessary complication (as that leg had no bearing on the delay) - but I'm wondering now if the 18:35 was cancelled for some reason, which might be why SouthEastern can't find the details? Although that seems very unlikely to me...

If anybody does have access to old train running times, and can verify my journey details, or could offer any thoughts on what additional information SouthEastern might be asking for, I'd be very grateful.

If not, I guess the best thing to do is just reply and ask them what kind of extra information they want!

 

[yorkie]

• Maidstone Barracks to Strood, depart 18:35, arrive 18:56: on time
• Strood to Lewisham, depart 19:05, arrive 19:55: 32 late at Blackheath, no report at Lewisham, 29 late at London Bridge
• Lewisham to Grove Park, depart 20:22, arrive 20:29: 1 late

 

[455driver]

How late did you arrive at Grove Park?
That is the important bit!

 

[yorkie]

The first official connection off the 1905 Strood-Lewisham is the 2022 Lewisham - Grove Park, arriving 2029.

It's unclear to me whether or not you made that connection or not? If you did, there is no claim. If you didn't, what was the first available service and what time did you arrive?

 

[user15681]

Timetabled arrival at Grove Park was 20:29. Seeing as you got the 19:35 (as opposed to the 19:05 because the calling points were changed), you would have got to Lewisham at 20:41 (realtime on 12/04). This means the first train you could catch to Grove Park was at 20:52 from Lewisham, arriving at Grove Park at 21:04 (realtime). A delay of 35 minutes, if that's correct.

The confusion may well be in that the 19:35 from Strood was cancelled from London Bridge, so whether someone in the office has accidentally assumed the service was cancelled throughout and therefore thought things didn't add up? Unlikely though, so I can't see why they've requested extra details.

I'd suggest ringing up the contact line tomorrow morning and sorting it on the phone (0845 000 2222 and option 6 when prompted, if you'd prefer to get it sorted quicker than by email). They can deal with Delay Repay details over the phone provided they've received the form, which they obviously have in this case. In future, if there's ever slight confusion over your claim or it's a difficult one to explain, I sometimes advise people to put a little note on seperate paper inside the postal form which briefly explains what/why happened.

 

[arb]

Thanks for the replies - the times given confirm my memories of the day (which are now based largely on what I wrote in the covering note with the original claim!)

To be clear, I didn't travel on the 1905 from Strood (because it was changed to not call at Lewisham). I instead travelled on the 1935. Subsequently I didn't make the 2022 connection at Lewisham, and ended up on a later train, with a delay of 30-59 minutes to the overall journey. I didn't note the exact times of the Lewisham train, other than it being more than 30 minutes later than the original planned arrival time (and nowhere near a full hour late - the 35 minutes suggested by Temple sounds about right).

 

[yorkie]

I'd have sought advice from staff as you may have been advised to take a different itinerary to minimise the delay.

 

[Paule23]

I'd have sought advice from staff as you may have been advised to take a different itinerary to minimise the delay.

Surely this is not relevant. The op is after advice on how to support this delay repay claim, not some other comment about how they could have avoided the problem in the first place.

My advice would be to concentrate only on the delayed train and your final arrival time at your destination (over. 30 minutes late due to the delayed arrival @ Lewisham).

 

[tony6499]

But you have put in a fraudulent claim as you put you travelled on the 1835 and you didn't so this is what they may be investigating and hoping you incriminate yourself further

 

[Bushy]

I always submit my claims online. There information that can be provided is limited. In this case I would have entered 1905 service details and entered the reason for delay as cancelled, i.e. cancelled for the destination concerned.

Regards

Bushy

 

[Class377]

But you have put in a fraudulent claim as you put you travelled on the 1835 and you didn't so this is what they may be investigating and hoping you incriminate yourself further

How do they check whether claims are ACTUALLY fraudulent though? I wouldn't have said this was a fraudulent claim, as the OP saw a train delayed by 30 minutes and read the policy, they didn't apply to take the proverbial?

 

[arb]

I wrote to SouthEastern, re-iterating the times of the delayed trains, enclosed a copy of my original covering letter, and asked them to clarify what further details they were asking for.

Today I received the correct compensation vouchers, along with the standard letter apologising for the delay and quoting the Delay Repay terms from their Passenger's Charter, etc. No mention at all of their original request for more details. All very odd, but no real complaints in the end!