Dear Sir/Madam,
On Monday the 8th October, after seeing your advertised online ticket service, I decided it would be an easier option to purchase my ticket online while at work and pick it up from a ticket machine on the way home. Little did I know what a palaver this was about to turn into.
I bought my tickets and went to London Bridge, where I had arranged to pick my tickets up. Went to one machine only to find that It was faulty and the touch screen was not functioning what so ever. So I que'd again for another and this time it had run out of Tickets. Yes. A ticket machine with no tickets. Again, I lined up and yes, 3rd time lucky I had successfully printed my tickets, slipped the receipt into my wallet and approached the gates to get on my train. Put the ticket into the gate. What's this? It didn't allow me through. As my train was about to leave I quickly rushed over to the gate attendant who explained the ticket wasn't valid but in his haste to keep up his enthralling conversation with his equally uninterested colleague divulged no information as to why but instead ordered that I should go to the ticket office. I went to the Ticket Office who kindly explained that they are unable to help as they are SouthEastern and not Southern and that I should go to platform 10 on London Bridge and speak to the people at your desk/office there. Well, how am I supposed to get to platform 10 when I don't have a valid ticket?? Are you proposing that I jump the gate and risk a minimum £20 fine? At this point I chose to instead pay for the journey using my Oyster Card. Something I was hoping to avoid and taking my Oyster card balance to -95p. Your error had put me into debt.
At this point I get home and luckily I had a day off on Tuesday to forget about the headache of a journey I just had on my way home.
Now come Wednesday morning. As usual, I find myself rushing to the train station in a panic. Only to take my ticket out, put it in the machine and then it all came flooding back. MY TICKET WAS INVALID. So, as the attendants at Gipsy Hill are probably some of the best attendants and most helpful I have experienced, I asked what was going on. There it was. The problem. My ticket. No I hope you are sitting because this is a good one. The ticket I had printed on the 8th October in fact expired on the 7th October?? How could this be? A ticket you have issued had already been 24 hours out of date by the time it had even left the machine. Now I know your machines can be slow at times and somewhat disfunctional, but this situation is pretty ridiculous considering it was meant to be a 7-day ticket. So, I casually walked over to the ticket office, after realising that I had now missed my 8.21 train to London Bridge. I speak to the lady who explains that she is unable to change or refund the ticket and that I should again speak to London Bridge. Now, Im not one for running round in circles, although Im sure this is what your company not only like their customers to do but I suspect their staff too. I explain I had already done this on Monday. She tells me to call Southern Customer Service. I will now be late for work. In fact, ill tell you how long I would be late. 20 min. What can you do in 20 min? Ill tell you what I could do, could have got my days filling done, made several important phone calls or even learnt to say 'Hello' in several different languages. Instead I find myself being forced to stand in the cold reading a newspaper that takes 15min to read. Leaving me with 5min to contemplate just how difficult obtaining a valid ticket from Southern really is.
So, today 10th October I call your customer service number. 08451 27 29 20. I wrote that straight from memory. Is that because your genius marketing department had invented such a memorable number or do you think it was because I had to input it so many times it is literally burned into memory for eternity. I think its the latter if I'm honest. So, I listen to your delightful young lady telling me all the wonderful different options to chose from, so I choose the obvious. Number 5, Refunds. Guess what happened? Without a single ring it tells me that the person on the other end has hung up. How rude?. So I call again, using the obvious option. Same thing happens. Call again, this time I try option 7, Speak to someone. After all that's all I need to do. Nope. Happens again. So I call again, this time I opt for the sales line, assuming that this option is obviously the option that will work. Guess what!? IT DID!. So you can imagine my gripe right now. Refund didnt work, customer services didnt work...... but..... the sales line did. How funny is that? Seems like this is an indication of how you view your customers!?
So I speak to this person. Who seems as bemused about the situation as I do. Goes away for 5min and comes back to tell me that in fact it is a known problem and waffles on about crossovers, parallelograms and interweb machines talking to each other and what ever else jargon he cared to throw at me, to then drop his penultimate statement for my perusal. "You will have to send in your ticket to us for a refund. In the mean time you have to buy another ticket" Are you joking? I mean really. You expect me to trust you to refund me a ticket when you cant even sell one correctly?. So I explain, I cant afford to buy another. For all your company needs to know, I am the poorest man on earth and have spent my last £22 on a weeks ticket from Gipsy Hill to London Bridge as my last dying wish. You should be offering me an IMMEDIATE solution to this problem. Not telling me to spend more money on your company to then have a long drawn out refund process sting my pockets for the next week at the very least. He then disappears for a few minutes and comes back with "Let me take your name and number and we will get back to you. I need to speak to my manager and see if there is anything we can do".
Well that was several hours ago. I don't know how long it takes to talk to someone about such an issue but if I can learn to say 'Hello' in several different languages in 20min, Im sure your customer services team can speak English, discuss a problem, find a resolution and reply, as promised to a customer in less than 3 hours.
I would like a reply and would like you to explain why you have failed to deliver such a simple task. I would also like to be contacted before 5pm regarding this issue with a solution. My contact number is __________. My train is at 5.19pm. I do not wish to be late or do I wish to have to walk from London Bridge to Gipsy Hill after a long days work. Which for your information is about 7miles and will take 2 and a half hours at a brisk walking pace. I have experience.
