Delay Repay fraudsters caught!

[Wookiee]

As an SWT season ticketholder it would be nice to get any form of compensation for delays!! I have given up claiming after asking if anyone could describe something I was allowed to claim for.

SWT aren't great for compensation. I was amazed to get 50% of a return fare back off them a few weeks ago when the Woking to Waterloo line was closed by overrunning engineering works. I thought they'd claim it wasn't their fault.

 

[MikeWh]

People are daft. There definitely are more lucrative ways of playing the system. Some of these people are addicted to claiming, you'd get them in big batches, neatly filled out forms. Maybe a claim every day!

And some people, particularly in the Redhill/Reigate area, have a genuine claim every day. They really wish they didn't, but that's GTR/DfT/RMT for you.

 

[LexyBoy]

Yes I can see what you mean but I often wonder if it's worth the bother of submitting a genuine claim just to get a few quid back. If somebody is willing to commit fraud there must be far more remunerative ways of doing so.

More remunerative ways certainly, but how many are so easy - and undetectable (until you get greedy) as bogus DR claims?

And it's not necessarily only a few quid - I've only made I think 3 claims for which I got about £250 and £20 with the third being ignored. Essentially any period return can pay back its full value as there is bound to be one train in the month of validity which is more than 2 hours delayed. I'd probably not bother if it was under a fiver or so.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Compulsory ID cards, compulsory gating at every station and access the station by scanning your ID. Compulsory scanning on boarding a service too. There, problem solved.

ID cards to cost £200 per person - £100 to fund the ID card scheme and £100 to fund the infrastructure costs. Why not?!

(The above is not a serious proposal, in the event of anyone with a sense of humour failure. It simply shows that it can be made foolproof - almost - but there is usually a cost.)

Or alternatively get rid of this whole compensation thing and spend the expected outgoings on compensation payments on reducing fares.

I wonder how the world existed before the compensation culture got a foothold.

Just fit everyone with a micro-chip or barcode. Scan your head as you walk past the ticket office, gateline, then train door on boarding. The reverse at the end of your journey. Fare deducted automatically, delay-repay automatically refunded. Load your head with credit and you can buy a coffee at the buffet too! Not far removed from a contactless debit card somehow permanently affixed to your person.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Just fit everyone with a micro-chip or barcode. Scan your head as you walk past the ticket office, gateline, then train door on boarding. The reverse at the end of your journey. Fare deducted automatically, delay-repay automatically refunded. Load your head with credit and you can buy a coffee at the buffet too! Not far removed from a contactless debit card somehow permanently affixed to your person.

Wouldn't be too surprised to see contactless payment devices implanted in peoples' bodies in a few years.

 

[martinB]

Wouldn't be too surprised to see contactless payment devices implanted in peoples' bodies in a few years.

From 2004:

The night club offers its VIP clients the opportunity to have a syringe-injected microchip implanted in their upper arms that not only gives them special access to VIP lounges, but also acts as a debit account from which they can pay for drinks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3697940.stm

 

[Skimpot flyer]

From 2004:



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3697940.stm

Drinks are limited to just one type of alcoholic beverage.

Hence the implant being known as Chip And Gin

I'll get my coat ...

 

[jon0844]

Drinks are limited to just one type of alcoholic beverage.

Hence the implant being known as Chip And Gin

And if your night out at the club results in you going home alone then I guess you could consider it contactless.

 

[Bald Rick]

And if your night out at the club results in you going home alone then I guess you could consider it contactless.

And if you use the club toilets, don't forget to (s)wipe out.

 

[GodAtum]

SWT have automatic delay repay for season ticket holders when they renewal their ticket.

I imagine TFL oyster is quite hard to fiddle too.

 

[cf111]

With ScotRail you can send in a picture of your ticket on the online claim form as long as it is cut or ripped in half. I have never seen a ScotRail guard using one of the clippers which print the headcodes so I think this is the best they can do.

While I think it's good you can now exchange the RTVs for cash if you want I did wonder how much more fraud would be committed because of that.

 

[AlterEgo]

With ScotRail you can send in a picture of your ticket on the online claim form as long as it is cut or ripped in half. I have never seen a ScotRail guard using one of the clippers which print the headcodes so I think this is the best they can do.

While I think it's good you can now exchange the RTVs for cash if you want I did wonder how much more fraud would be committed because of that.

In practice there's no need to cut the ticket in half, the claim will be accepted anyway.

Cutting it in half obviously doesn't apply to season tickets, which is where the greatest abuse is.

Photoshop is used in a lot of fraud too.

 

[Wookiee]

SWT have automatic delay repay for season ticket holders when they renewal their ticket.

What SWT do is hardly Delay Repay.

 

[swt_passenger]

What SWT do is hardly Delay Repay.

It isn't Delay Repay at all. It won't come in until the next franchise...

 

[Bullfield WEst]

Or a 12 car Thameslink train with 1500 people on it!

You'd need to make 2 claims: one for the original delay, and one for being in a queue with 1499 other people waiting to get your form.

I recently had to ask Carillion in Sheffield, who run Northern's Delay Repay system, if they ran a similar system for their services as the 10 working days quoted to me was 15 days and increasing.
The full story of this later....