Delay Repay claims rejected

[robbeech]

On 21/11 I submitted a claim to LNER, it is now working days since that and I am still to receive an answer from them and we are now at 30 working days, however on 08/12 they did request further info which I had supplied to them within 30 minutes of receiving their email asking for further info, I make it 17 working days since I supplied the additional info, it is a simple claim so I don't understand why it is taking so long. If I haven't heard anything by Monday next week I will be chasing it up via twitter.

They’re very steady at the moment for whatever reason it may be. Between 30 and 40 days seems common.

Sometimes asking on Twitter can get them to prioritise it so you may wish to consider doing that sooner rather than later. Whether they’ll accept or reject it remains to be seen. There’s been an increase in complaints about absolute nonsense rejections network wide recently including with LNER

 

[Deltic1961]

It's the same customer service in many aspects of British life. Just ignore people and hope they go away.

 

[Haywain]

It's the same customer service in many aspects of British life. Just ignore people and hope they go away.

Absolutely. Couldn't possibly be connected to staff shortages due to Covid.

Yes, it's sarcasm.

 

[Deltic1961]

Absolutely. Couldn't possibly be connected to staff shortages due to Covid.

Yes, it's sarcasm.

Been like this for years. Nothing to do with Covid.

 

[bakerstreet]

On 21/11 I submitted a claim to LNER, it is now working days since that and I am still to receive an answer from them and we are now at 30 working days, however on 08/12 they did request further info which I had supplied to them within 30 minutes of receiving their email asking for further info, I make it 17 working days since I supplied the additional info, it is a simple claim so I don't understand why it is taking so long. If I haven't heard anything by Monday next week I will be chasing it up via twitter.

You may be interested in this thread. I had exactly the same experience, including request for more info. But then nothing. I followed it up on LNER website chat and resolved in just a few mins. Good luck !

LNER Delay Repay delays

Just wanted to know if I’m alone in this. In early September I submitted four e tickets (advance singles, booked train only, two on each journey) for delay repay. The journey from London was 30-59 mins delayed, The journey back to London was 60-119 mins delayed. All submissions were...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[robbeech]

Absolutely. Couldn't possibly be connected to staff shortages due to Covid.

Yes, it's sarcasm.

Been like this for years. Nothing to do with Covid.

It hasn't been like THIS for years at all. At least not with LNER, although it clearly hasn't been perfect.

 

[Watershed]

Absolutely. Couldn't possibly be connected to staff shortages due to Covid.

Yes, it's sarcasm.

I fail to see how Covid can be causing any notable level of shortages in customer services.

In most circumstances, I would imagine such work could be done from home. Thus meaning that anyone who is self-isolating should still be able to work, unless they happen to be in the minority of people who have significant symptoms.

Unless you are suggesting LNER simply don't have enough customer services staff, regardless of Covid?

 

[robbeech]

Unless you are suggesting LNER simply don't have enough customer services staff, regardless of Covid?

I know several companies that used the pandemic to decimate customer service staff numbers to save money and they have not rehired, just accepting that customers will wait much longer for a response or indeed simply not get one. It’s not uncommon for all customer service cases that get to a certain age without response or follow up from the customer to be binned in the hope that it goes away. I’m not suggesting this happens at LNER, nor anywhere on the railway but in general CS staff are some easy places to save money.

I agree it is a job that could be done at home, and any excuse to suggest otherwise would just be an excuse, there’s no reason it couldn’t be done at home. The difficulty is, when someone is isolating AND fit to work they are presented with a choice. They can either work from home on full pay or they can sit at home and not work for full pay. I suspect I know what most people would do, and again this isn’t limited to The Railway.

 

[Deltic1961]

In Scotrail's case CS has always been abyzmal. When you fill out the website form you then wait a week for an automatic reply which asks for the same info you gave them in the initial contact form. Then you wait another week for a cut and paste reply. When you go back and say thanks but that's no use they ignore you completely. Then you chase it up and wait another week for a supervisor to tell you to go away.

It's been like this for years now and absolutely nothing to do with current circumstances. What they don't seem to get is if they ran a reliable customer fucused service they would get far less complaints in the first place.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I agree it is a job that could be done at home, and any excuse to suggest otherwise would just be an excuse, there’s no reason it couldn’t be done at home. The difficulty is, when someone is isolating AND fit to work they are presented with a choice. They can either work from home on full pay or they can sit at home and not work for full pay. I suspect I know what most people would do, and again this isn’t limited to The Railway.

Why would any company allow someone to sit at home doing nothing if they were able to work?

TBH if isolating and not symptomatic I would want to work anyway - not being able to go out is boring!

 

[Aaron1]

They’re very steady at the moment for whatever reason it may be. Between 30 and 40 days seems common.

Sometimes asking on Twitter can get them to prioritise it so you may wish to consider doing that sooner rather than later. Whether they’ll accept or reject it remains to be seen. There’s been an increase in complaints about absolute nonsense rejections network wide recently including with LNER

You may be interested in this thread. I had exactly the same experience, including request for more info. But then nothing. I followed it up on LNER website chat and resolved in just a few mins. Good luck !

LNER Delay Repay delays

Just wanted to know if I’m alone in this. In early September I submitted four e tickets (advance singles, booked train only, two on each journey) for delay repay. The journey from London was 30-59 mins delayed, The journey back to London was 60-119 mins delayed. All submissions were...

www.railforums.co.uk

I messaged them on Facebook this morning and after confirming a few journey details it was sorted out within 10 mins and the money is on the way to my bank!

 

[XAM2175]

I agree it is a job that could be done at home, and any excuse to suggest otherwise would just be an excuse,

It's not necessarily that easy to set up straight away - most of the people answering phones and e-mails are on minimum wage and it's unreasonable to expect that they have the ability to work from home to the same productivity. I was involved in the original effort to keep my company's call-centre going at the start of the pandemic, and we had staff who didn't have their own computers (and we only had a few laptops spare to give them), staff who had kids at home and so had nowhere to work, staff who were still in training and so weren't yet qualified to work independently, all sorts of things like that, and on top of it all the telephony system was secured against external access.

We were eventually able to get a moderate level of service restored but it took weeks and still needed in-office working from a group of about ten senior employees who were able to drive in.

 

[robbeech]

It's not necessarily that easy to set up straight away - most of the people answering phones and e-mails are on minimum wage and it's unreasonable to expect that they have the ability to work from home to the same productivity. I was involved in the original effort to keep my company's call-centre going at the start of the pandemic, and we had staff who didn't have their own computers (and we only had a few laptops spare to give them), staff who had kids at home and so had nowhere to work, staff who were still in training and so weren't yet qualified to work independently, all sorts of things like that, and on top of it all the telephony system was secured against external access.

We were eventually able to get a moderate level of service restored but it took weeks and still needed in-office working from a group of about ten senior employees who were able to drive in.

Straight away no, 20 months perhaps.
Like I say we don’t know the reasoning here but the specific issue appears to have been solved.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Not the most dynamic of business continuity plans, it would seem.

Likely to have been the case that many such business continuity plans have been found seriously wanting over the past couple of years (not just those businesses with railway connections), and I doubt that departments that effectively cost a firm money, rather than bring it in, would have been top priority to sort out.

Currently waiting to hear back from TPE for a Delay Repay claim submitted in late November/early December. The amount at stake for me is 'de minimis', but certainly interesting to hear of others' experiences.

 

[robbeech]

Not the most dynamic of business continuity plans, it would seem.

Likely to have been the case that many such business continuity plans have been found seriously wanting over the past couple of years (not just those businesses with railway connections), and I doubt that departments that effectively cost a firm money, rather than bring it in, would have been top priority to sort out.

Currently waiting to hear back from TPE for a Delay Repay claim submitted in late November/early December. The amount at stake for me is 'de minimis', but certainly interesting to hear of others' experiences.

Is a department dealing with delay repay necessarily one that costs money? Sure, it doesn't bring it in, but with the right (wrong) training, and systems designed to minimise the number of claims, you could argue that a "GOOD"* department could actually save them money.


*Profit focussed.

 

[gray1404]

Received a reply today from the SAME advisor at Avanti West Coast Customer Resolutions. She totally ignored my request for my case to be reviewed by a Manager nor my explanation that by the time the train came to a stop at the platform and the doors released the delay was 60 minutes. She merely repeated the position that the delay was 59 minutes and provided a link to the said service on Recent Train Times. I have responded once more stating my position and asking for a Manager to review the case.

Good news. Received another reply today from the same advisor again. She said she's spoken to her Manager and he is happy to approve the additional compensation due for a 60 minute delay on this occasion.

At first I felt grateful but then remembered, no I was delayed an hour.

 

[robbeech]

Good news. Received another reply today from the same advisor again. She said she's spoken to her Manager and he is happy to approve the additional compensation due for a 60 minute delay on this occasion.

At first I felt grateful but then remembered, no I was delayed an hour.

It’s almost a “I’ll let you off this time” situation isn’t it. A kick in the teeth in real world terms but of course the end result is favourable. Glad you got there in the end.

 

[gray1404]

Does anyone know how long Northern are currently taking to process Delay Repay claims?

Also, have Northern begun sending out complimentary tickets again as I know they were waiting for a new stock of these?

Thanks.

 

[py_megapixel]

Does anyone know how long Northern are currently taking to process Delay Repay claims?

Also, have Northern begun sending out complimentary tickets again as I know they were waiting for a new stock of these?

Thanks.

I have submitted two Northern claims lately. The first claim was submitted in late October and accepted on 7th November, while the second one was submitted in the first week of November and not accepted until 7th December for some reason.

Complimentary tickets for both claims arrived on 18th December - so there was a substantial delay, especially with the first claim, between receiving confirmation that "We have authorised the dispatch of free tickets" and actually receiving said free tickets.

 

[robbeech]

Does anyone know how long Northern are currently taking to process Delay Repay claims?

Also, have Northern begun sending out complimentary tickets again as I know they were waiting for a new stock of these?

Thanks.

I received a free ticket about 3 weeks ago if that helps? I’ve also got some RTV on the way although they’re a bit steady. The claim took nearly 7 weeks for them to accept (first time though) and it’s been over a month since they said they’d send but we have had Christmas etc.

 

[gray1404]

I submitted to delay repay claims to Northern on Friday gone within 5 minutes of each other. I have heard back about the second claim today but not the first. Is this anything to worry about? Is there a possibility they have overlooked the first claim?

It will be interesting to see how long the free tickets actually take to arrive though in the post.

 

[Hadders]

Has anyone got a recent experience with CrossCountry? I submitted a claim at the end of November which has still not been dealt with.

 

[_toommm_]

Has anyone got a recent experience with CrossCountry? I submitted a claim at the end of November which has still not been dealt with.

From what I saw on Twitter, they’ve recently dealt with claims from the end of November. Personally, I’d leave it til the end of the week, then chase it up.

Hopefully the link to this tweet works:

https://twitter.com/crosscountryuk/status/1478906838162812928?s=21

 

[robbeech]

I submitted to delay repay claims to Northern on Friday gone within 5 minutes of each other. I have heard back about the second claim today but not the first. Is this anything to worry about? Is there a possibility they have overlooked the first claim?

It will be interesting to see how long the free tickets actually take to arrive though in the post.

I wouldn’t worry just yet, sometimes they get processed in a different order. Don’t forget about it though.

The last claim I had which was tickets took just over a week to arrive after they accepted which I considered quite good.

Has anyone got a recent experience with CrossCountry? I submitted a claim at the end of November which has still not been dealt with.

The combination of higher than normal claims and lower than normal staff to deal with any non automated claims means 6 and 7 weeks appears normal.

 

[gray1404]

I wouldn’t worry just yet, sometimes they get processed in a different order. Don’t forget about it though.

The last claim I had which was tickets took just over a week to arrive after they accepted which I considered quite good.

I submitted to delay repay claims to Northern on Friday gone within 5 minutes of each other. I have heard back about the second claim today but not the first. Is this anything to worry about? Is there a possibility they have overlooked the first claim?

It will be interesting to see how long the free tickets actually take to arrive though in the post.

Thank you. I won't worry just yet nor forget either. What a strange system Northern have in that they don't process claims in the order received.

I was concerned at first they were taking issue with my claim but I'll wait a while longer. I've just checked the status of my claim again and it says "open - under review". They've also changed the start point of my journey to the station at which I suffered the first cancellation en-route along with the time of cancelled departure.

 

[trainophile]

Having failed to find out how to claim for a cancelled TPE train (I didn't take the next one, sorted out an alternative route and bought new tickets) I emailed them the details. Their reply included a comment about "Please note Advance tickets are not refundable" so I tweeted just now to say "I assume you don't mean even if you cancel the train?". To which I had a quick reply saying "in your circumstances you should use the delay repay form"!

They really are not making this easy. I've now asked how long a delay I should claim for, given I didn't travel with them at all.

 

[Kite159]

Thanks for the link.

Edit - I've emailled the Customer Relations team with my appeal to the appeal

I suspect the automatic system is saying the train has arrived at the station when it passes a signal not even halfway between the two stations so all by magic a 7 minute journey takes 3 minutes pushing it to being 29 minutes late. It will be interesting to see what their reply will be.

Received an email back about this today:
"having looked into the system used to make this decision it looks likely that there was an error where it has registered the wrong arrival time of the train, and hence calculated the delay as 28 minutes rather than the correct length" and that the details will be passed back to the delay team to investigate.

So I suspect they used the time the train passed the last signal (which makes the announcements at the station go "The train at platform 2 is the blah blah blah") without taking into account the time it takes for said train to actually arrive at the station.

 

[td97]

Having failed to find out how to claim for a cancelled TPE train (I didn't take the next one, sorted out an alternative route and bought new tickets) I emailed them the details. Their reply included a comment about "Please note Advance tickets are not refundable" so I tweeted just now to say "I assume you don't mean even if you cancel the train?". To which I had a quick reply saying "in your circumstances you should use the delay repay form"!

They really are not making this easy. I've now asked how long a delay I should claim for, given I didn't travel with them at all.

Delay repay is for completed journeys only so their Twitter advisor is basically advising you to commit fraud.
Their website says
"If you buy a train ticket, but are unable to travel on that service because of disruption to the train service, you can claim a full refund."
With link available here

Refund Portal

If you already tried that then follow it up with tpe.websupport@tpexpress.co.uk
Sometimes you really have to labour your point until it reaches a person who actually understands the process.

Does anyone know how long Northern are currently taking to process Delay Repay claims?

I am on appeal number 3 with a current Northern delay repay. The response time from a person seems to be around a week.
The time for claims to be initially processed through the automated system is seemingly random.

I had a recent good outcome where after appeal Northern paid 10% for a delay in the 15-29 minute bracket. I further appealed the amount (should have been 12.5%) and they refunded 100% of the return ticket price.

 

[trainophile]

Having failed to find out how to claim for a cancelled TPE train (I didn't take the next one, sorted out an alternative route and bought new tickets) I emailed them the details. Their reply included a comment about "Please note Advance tickets are not refundable" so I tweeted just now to say "I assume you don't mean even if you cancel the train?". To which I had a quick reply saying "in your circumstances you should use the delay repay form"!

They really are not making this easy. I've now asked how long a delay I should claim for, given I didn't travel with them at all.

This is getting ridiculous. I'm now arguing with them about their insistence that the compensation depends on how late I got home! What part of "it was a cancellation not a delay" don't they understand?

Thank you @td97, I thought I was losing the plot!

 

[robbeech]

This is getting ridiculous. I'm now arguing with them about their insistence that the compensation depends on how late I got home! What part of "it was a cancellation not a delay" don't they understand?

Thank you @td97, I thought I was losing the plot!

These problems don’t improve. Even though they know they exist, and given the benefit to not improving (all be it small in the grand scheme of things) it surely raises suspicions?

The issue is, they are either not providing sufficient training to staff so they’re getting it wrong or they’re deliberately telling them the wrong things to save money. Whilst the latter is incredibly unlikely the frequency at which it happens is alarming. When we add in the fact that they’ve been told about it several times, threads here exist which someone from the relevant operator will read and it still carries on, this must be more than poor training.

It’s akin to the LNER split ticketing debacle that went on for years. They’d refuse to pay out on split tickets and whilst most would give up (nice bonus) the ones who pushed it, particularly if they asked here would receive an apology and be paid what was due. People from this forum have spoken with senior staff at LNER about this specific issue and have been assured it would be sorted. Of course absolutely nothing was done for some time and the problems of rejections carried on.

Why did they get it wrong in the first place, how can senior staff have such abysmal understanding of what are fairly basic rules?
But more importantly, why, when they accepted they’d got it wrong and assured people that staff would be retrained, why did they continue to get it wrong?

The first time can be put down to incompetence and ignorance, the second time ignorance and carelessness, but when the issue prevails for a number of years (I haven’t heard of a case recently but that’s not to say it doesn’t still happen, but let’s hope it’s solved) then how can it not be more than incompetence?

There’s only so many times you can play dumb, and the railway has used up its dumb quota several times over.