Lost e-tickets VTWC

[221129]

The staff were just doing their jobs correctly. And with no ID and not even a crime reference there was no chance of a UFN and they were correct to refuse travel. You'd be surprised how many young people especially on late night services seem to have had their tickets or wallet stolen so I'm really not surprised they didn't believe her.

 

[Clip]

To reply, she was borrowing a friends phone I believe. Or someone else’s. Not sure on that one.

A lot of the “alternatives” being suggested here are all very well after the fact, but none of them overly helpful with little under 20-odd minutes from getting in to the station and getting on the train.

I’m only a third party to the whole story myself and was only involved with the northern end of the conversation while the family were scrabbling around for options.

SILK as already stated; not an option. No staffed stations nearby the family.

Printing out tickets; what’s the point in having e-tickets then? The whole point of e-anything is not having to bother with a physical copy. If the rail companies are going to offer e-ticketing, then it’s been implemented really poorly if there’s no way of checking on the ground from a reference number held elsewhere.

Emergency cash; yup, all very well but finding someone with a bank that does it is key. Only person in a group of 15 people that had a NatWest card was my other half and he wasn’t even there! And anyway, there wouldn’t have been any time to send the cash over from one account to another, then call NatWest to arrange a code, get to a NatWest machine and get it withdrawn and ticket purchased before departure.

No crime reference number at the time - her priority was trying to get on a train home first. And have you ever called 101? Frighteningly long waits to answer a call in the first place.

Look, this wasn’t someone trying to get a freebie. And yes I know fakers must try this sort of thing all the time... but this was a VTWC service to Manchester and she was going... to Manchester.

It’s not like she was hopping off at the next stop two minutes away and hiding from the guard to avoid payment.

Shoddy operation, shoddy staff.

They were just doing their job and ill ask again how do you separate those in need form those who are not in need? You dont have to ring 101 theres a police presence at Euston I believe or a station just round the corner to report the crime and get the reference number which would've held more weight with the staff at the barrier line.

Its an unfortunate set of circumstances but if you take yourself away from your personal involvement in the case then you could understand why they done what they did and why posters are posting what they have done.

 

[Western Sunset]

Ok so as a question to you and others - How do you determine who is in need and who isnt - I mean if they have no ID on them you cant really check so you just punt out UFN's whenever anyone tells you a similar story and no way to chase them up as its false details and we get loads of threads in here about people wrongfully getting them due to as above?

I'm just thinking what if it'd been one of my daughters?
Stranded. Vulnerable.

Surely gateline staff (or their managers) can use discretion and at least provide something more than the "help" VTWC did on this occasion?
Experienced staff will have a "feel" if someone is trying it on.

At the very least they should've let her on the train and give her time to talk with the TM as the journey progressed.

After all, she did have a ticket; just not a physical one. As the OP says above, if TOCs want to go down the e-ticket route (saving themselves money), then they need to be aware that incidents like this will happen and must have procedures in place to deal sympathetically with the traveller.

PS Just been to Matalan and my wife forgot her store card. Cashier just asks for her name, postcode and house number. Sorted. No fuss.

So why not VTWC?

 

[30907]

After all, she did have a ticket; just not a physical one.

PS Just been to Matalan and my wife forgot her store card. Cashier just asks for her name, postcode and house number. Sorted. No fuss.

So why not VTWC?

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs:

1. No, she had bought a ticket, which is slightly different, unfortunately, as she could not provide evidence of that (which I hope staff would have accepted)..

2. Matalan have a satabase. I dounit there is a database of all ticket holders, who book online, let alone one accessible to all beeline staff.

 

[Bletchleyite]

2. Matalan have a satabase. I dounit there is a database of all ticket holders, who book online, let alone one accessible to all beeline staff.

There is one for e-tickets and ToD, yes. Who can access it I don’t know.

 

[shredder1]

Duty of (couldnt), Care (less).

 

[boing_uk]

There’s a police presence at Euston? Then why didn’t gate line direct her to it?

The girl isn’t a local to London and being panicked about missing the last train home, probably wasn’t in an entirely rational mood.

Yes I’m sure a lot of people try to get out of paying for tickets but this wasn’t the case here and there was clearly the ability to pay for a new ticket remotely but there wasn’t enough time.

The train calls at 5 stations on the way and given time they could have had the original ticket details over to whoever at Virgin before the train even reached Watford. At which point she could have been ejected from the train, had police meet the train at any station en route or whatever had it been genuine fare evasion.

But it’s a ramshackle operation if e-ticket details are not available to staff on the ground. That is just poor management and poor implementation for which there isn’t an excuse.

 

[30907]

But it’s a ramshackle operation if e-ticket details are not available to staff on the ground. That is just poor management and poor implementation for which there isn’t an excuse.

I don't think that's fair. With a self-print ticket, staff on the ground simply need to check that it is genuine and being used by the right person. A QR scanner is all they need, the traveller provides the ticket and ID.

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

On SNCF/Thalys, in the limit if you can quote the PNR (Booking Reference) to the conductor that's enough. They all have tablets with all the PNRs and can see if it's representing a valid ticket and if they've already seen it. And this is France, where a goodly segment of the population are quite resistant to paying for rail travel if they can avoid it...

 

[Haywain]

On SNCF/Thalys, in the limit if you can quote the PNR (Booking Reference) to the conductor that's enough. They all have tablets with all the PNRs and can see if it's representing a valid ticket and if they've already seen it. And this is France, where the railway is still nationalised.

Changed that for you.

 

[AlterEgo]

On SNCF/Thalys, in the limit if you can quote the PNR (Booking Reference) to the conductor that's enough. They all have tablets with all the PNRs and can see if it's representing a valid ticket and if they've already seen it. And this is France, where a goodly segment of the population are quite resistant to paying for rail travel if they can avoid it...

Also the case in Italy.

 

[Deafdoggie]

As someone with an 18year old daughter, what advice would I have offered her in this situation?
Firstly, find a Police Officer, I’ve never been to Euston and not seen one somewhere. And I’ve used the 23:00 to Manchester. Got to be worth asking them to speak to barrier staff. may, or may not work.
Secondly, as money for a hotel seemed no problem in this case, buy a ticket online & use that instead.
Virgin will be more willing to refund that afterwards than a hotel room.
Finally, all the stations the 23:00 from Euston calls at have ticket offices, how was she getting home from the station? Was there no one who could do SILK at journeys end?

 

[boing_uk]

For SILK you also have to be at a station with an open ticket office, according to VT.

Preston AND Man Picc are all closed at that time of night.

And it was the 23:00 to Mancs she was trying to get on. She got in to Euston around 22:40 when she called her family.

And that’s the point; there was absolutely no issue in actually buying a replacement ticket - but there was no time to do so before departure as in the situation we were all kind of hoping to have gotten her on board the train first but gate line refused.

I’ve had an UPFN issued before from Euston back to MK when I accidentally left my wallet at college in Kingston which at the hour I was travelling in the evening I couldn’t get back to retrieve.

Yes I know there are fare evaders out there and strictly speaking the staff were correct in what they did. However it’s hardly accommodating, especially on a service with limited stops like the 23:00. More than enough time to get a true fare evader dealt with en route and met at one of the 5 stations that train calls at.

 

[Bensonby]

Do TOCs have stranded passenger policies?

 

[[.n]]

Do TOCs have stranded passenger policies?

Yes the SILK that is mentioned, is "Stranded In Location Known"

 

[Bletchleyite]

I must admit that the option of purchasing an "any card" ticket (though they'd have to get someone willing to use their card to get it) on an online site is these days a much easier, better and cheaper option. Perhaps that should be made official in some form - say, for an additional £10 admin fee the TVM could perhaps issue without a card at all. Might even be worth publicising it so the cost of modifying the TVMs to allow for this could be recouped by some decent usage - why on earth not make some money by charging for a service that people might actually want?

 

[Silverdale]

Might even be worth publicising it so the cost of modifying the TVMs to allow for this could be recouped by some decent usage - why on earth not make some money by charging for a service that people might actually want?

A TOC offering a service which seeks to "make some money" out of stranded passengers who have lost or had their tickets stolen and don't have the means to pay for a new one is not a good PR look. You can easily imagine how the press would write-up the experience of a passenger who had been mugged on the street and then charged to pick up a new ticket.

Having said that, I can imagine that the ability to collect a ticket purchased by A.N.Other could be useful to people other than those who have been mugged and find themselves stranded. The challenge would be how to provide evidence of the ID of the person collecting the ticket.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Having said that, I can imagine that the ability to collect a ticket purchased by A.N.Other could be useful to people other than those who have been mugged and find themselves stranded. The challenge would be how to provide evidence of the ID of the person collecting the ticket.

Why would the booking reference not be adequate to identify that they were entitled to the ticket?

I believe there was some kind of money laundering scheme involving booking expensive Anytime tickets and different people collecting them and selling them on, that said, and it was that that led to "same card" collections. So that would need to be considered.

 

[sheff1]

The challenge would be how to provide evidence of the ID of the person collecting the ticket.

Inserting a card for normal ToD collection ("same card" or "any card") provides no evidence of the ID of the person collecting the ticket.

 

[Deafdoggie]

Inserting a card for normal ToD collection ("same card" or "any card") provides no evidence of the ID of the person collecting the ticket.

It depends. Some machines will allow any card at all (in other words is a pointless thing) other machines allow any card in the purchasers name. Whilst others still, allow only the card used for purchase. I guess it’s down to fraud likelihood.
The biggest problem is criminals using stolen details to make purchases. The banks feel having the card for collection cuts down on this. But why ‘any card’ the TOCs have never explained.

 

[dj_mikey_k]

As stated in the first post the traveller had access to a Mobile phone who she called her family whilst at the gate line.
It would have been quiet easy to ask who she had borrowed the mobile off to download the trainline app. Then it would just have been a case of logging into the app and showing the ticket to the gate line staff.