False advertising EMR first class on Trainline?

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Hello all,

I was looking for tickets from Nottingham to London for a Sunday in June and stumbled across just before checkout that I can pay £9 more for first class on EMR. The description mentioned complimentary food. I thought that’s great, more comfort, place to charge my laptop and free food. After I booked it, I thought id look at EMR’s website about first class but they say that complimentary food is not provided on Sundays.

Not sure if this a regular thing but I never go first class like ever. It seems the first class description is misleading on Trainline for a Sunday as food is not provided. Should I bother complaining?

They've basically applied the First Class description on EMR and applied it to every day of the week.
Interestingly, tried Virgin Trains ticketing and they show Sunday: "Buffet Service"
False advertising?

 

[redreni]

Maybe TTL self-police their license conditions like they do their accreditation?

Why wouldn't they, if nobody else seems to want to police them?

 

[dcsprior]

I don't doubt those with legal expertise, but its not half daft in the 'court of common sense' that a third party retailer can make incorrect claims about someone else's service and then it's the service provider themselves who are on the hook.

The private company gets the money (via commission, ad revenue, selling data, whatever) but its the government-funded train operator (so indirectly the taxpayer) that's on the hook for costs dealing with the subsequent reimbursement or whatever when the service which they themselves never actually promised, wasn't delivered? As a third party retailer you could just claim whatever you wanted to in order to drive sales and leave the fallout to someone else. The law can sometimes be a very strange beast.

I've no legal expertise, but I wonder if it comes down to whether the trainline is merely a third-party retailer in this case.

Is there a difference between:

1. buying a mobile phone (/ shampoo / child's toy) from a shop who have bought it from the manufacturer
2. buying a concert ticket (/ airline ticket / hotel reservation) from a booking agent acting on behalf of the service provider

?

And if so, is the EMR/Trainline scenario here more like #2 than #1

 

[Watershed]

I've no legal expertise, but I wonder if it comes down to whether the trainline is merely a third-party retailer in this case.

Is there a difference between:

1. buying a mobile phone (/ shampoo / child's toy) from a shop who have bought it from the manufacturer
2. buying a concert ticket (/ airline ticket / hotel reservation) from a booking agent acting on behalf of the service provider

?

And if so, is the EMR/Trainline scenario here more like #2 than #1

In the first example, the manufacturer would not be legally liable for things like misleading statements made by the seller, since they are not a party to the contract; your recourse would be against the seller. However the manufacturer would still be liable for certain types of dangerous defects for example.

I agree that, with train tickets being a service and Trainline acting as an agent, the second example is more apt for this situation.