Northern Delay Repay - "You have not used the ticket"

[40Mick]

Hello - My party of 5 travelled on a Off Peak Day return tickets from Leyland to Manchester on Saturday 8th August. Our train home from Oxford Rd was delayed by around 40 mins. Northern rejected my initial Delay Repay claim, stating:

"We are really sorry but we have rejected your claim as you have not used the ticket to travel and therefore you are entitled to a full refund from the ticket retailer without any administration charge. You should contact the ticket retailer directly in order to obtain a full refund."

We did use the tickets. I seem to recall the barriers were open at Oxford Rd on that day, and there are no barriers at Leyland station. I've already appealed stating this and offering to share my Google Maps timeline that confirms the journey was made. What's my correct next step please? Should I submit another (final?) appeal, or seek a refund for the tickets which were purchased from the Leyland ticket office? If it's the lattter, how do I go about this?


In case it's relevant: we travelled on 3 Adult returns @£10.50 and 2 Child returns @£3.00 (with F&F Railcard).

 

[py_megapixel]

Do not claim a refund from the ticket retailer - that is only for situations where you abandon your journey due to disruption. If you completed your journey using the tickets then Delay Repay is correct avenue.

I assume your tickets had a barcode on and would ordinarily have to be scanned at Oxford Road? (but not on this occasion as the barriers were open).

If Northern's automated system is giving out this advice based on a barcode ticket not being scanned, that is extremely poor, as the action they end up encouraging - claiming a refund for a ticket you have used - is generally seen as fraudulent!

 

[Bletchleyite]

What a bunch of muppets. That would be a fraudulent refund. Appeal it and say you did travel but that you didn't need to scan as gatelines were open.

The incompetence the railway shows sometimes really does blow my mind at times. This, were it deliberate, would be tantamount to inciting the commission of a criminal offence!

 

[speedy1]

Oopsie yet another TOC making another 'mistake' with their process...lol

Ask for deadlock mentioning the Ombudsmen and/or email complaints@northernrailway.co.uk

You shouldn't claim a refund as you used the ticket. Retailers such as Northern are happy to accuse their customers of fraud in those circumstances...

 

[Bishops]

Ask for deadlock mentioning the Ombudsmen

Shouldnt they only be doing that once they have received a final reply from the railway? this seems a first reply which is automated no doubt so why jump the gun before Northern have been given the chance to rectify it with a human eye?

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

eTVD scan records are used for delay repay for fraud prevention - the logic looks for other scan records from the same time at that location or train (for other passengers). Remember that this is a fully automated process, with just the "rejects" either being automatically rejected or sent to a manual queue depending on the reason.

Where both parts of the ticket (out and return) not scanned at any point at all? Nothing on the train, nothing at the gateline either on arrival or your return from Manchester? If so, I suspect they've just selected the wrong reject reason.

There is no strict requirement for you to proactively scan an eTicket, of course, but it is unusual not to have a return ticket scanned on a Saturday into central Manchester I would have thought. Personally, I always scan a barcode ticket anyway, even if the gates are open, as it proves where I was at a certain time, which is useful for things like this, but also any queries around fare evasion etc, if split tickets or unusual patterns are ever flagged automatically.

 

[speedy1]

Shouldnt they only be doing that once they have received a final reply from the railway? this seems a first reply which is automated no doubt so why jump the gun before Northern have been given the chance to rectify it with a human eye?

They said they already appealed? That would make at least 2 replies? (and at least 2 chances). And that wording to me sounds very final...

 

[Bishops]

They said they already appealed? That would make at least 2 replies? (and at least 2 chances). And that wording to me sounds very final...

It needs to be them stating it is their final offer on the matter

 

[40Mick]

Thanks all.

I've appealed once already, so I should appeal again and if rejected again I should ask for deadlock? I honestly can't remember if the gates were open on the way there - we travelled a lot during the Summer Holidays. It was a credit card style physical ticket with a mag strip so no barcode.

 

[Bishops]

Thanks all.

I've appealed once already, so I should appeal again and if rejected again I should ask for deadlock? I honestly can't remember if the gates were open on the way there - we travelled a lot during the Summer Holidays. It was a credit card style physical ticket with a mag strip so no barcode.

yes appeal again - its unfortunate the process. right old pain in the neck it is but it is what it is.

CCST should still show the last time it was passed through a gateline but if you didnt use one then it cant.

Tell them that it is not a refund but delay repay - thats them trying to get out of paying it

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

If it is a CCST, this is simply an error, by a human - that reject reason relates to eTVD and ITSO (barcode and smartcard) scans. The tickets will have been referred to a manual queue for some other issue, and the human has selected the wrong reason.

 

[robbeech]

I’ve had this before, the system is simply not fit for purpose as is increasingly common. However, for my trip (quite a long journey involving 2 or possibly 3 northern trains and one Avanti train (which I missed because of the delay to northern) I did just get in touch with them and explain that I had travelled and they accepted that and paid out.

 

[40Mick]

Thanks for your advice everyone. I've appealed the decision again, and will share the outcome here.

 

[AdamWW]

"We are really sorry but we have rejected your claim as you have not used the ticket to travel and therefore you are entitled to a full refund from the ticket retailer without any administration charge. You should contact the ticket retailer directly in order to obtain a full refund."

Presumably somehow this has got the response intended for people who abandon their journeys and incorrectly attempt to get their money back via delay repay rather than a refund.

I doubt that the normal process is to check delay repay requests against scan records and if none are found to tell people to apply for a refund.
(Which of course you can't get any more and even when you could it wouldn't have been without any administrative charge.)

 

[Kite159]

Northern are truly hopeless, no doubt they will come back with some random excuse that they can't approve the claim as there is no proof you were on that train due to the lack of scan data.

Or come up with some rubbish like you could have magically predicted the delay from Oxford Road, teleported to Victoria to catch a Wigan bound service to change to a Blackpool train at Wigan.

 

[Starmill]

it is unusual not to have a return ticket scanned on a Saturday into central Manchester I would have thought.

I'm not sure this would qualify as unusual to be honest. It's pretty common to have visual inspection only or no inspection at Manchester Piccadilly, due to the gates being open, using an exit without a check or a manual check happening but there being no time to scan.

Manchester Oxford Road and the others would see this less commonly as they don't usually have manual inspection, but it still happens. All kinds of reasons gates are open from breaks, handovers, crowding of gate areas, staff shortages etc.

 

[yorkie]

eTVD scan records are used for delay repay for fraud prevention...

Ah, reminds me of this thread:

... It's involved in the fraud reporting and analysis. Anyone with access to eTVD can confirm the GPS coordinates of where a scan occurred....

 

[Bletchleyite]

The absence of a scan of course tells you nothing, unless it has been 100% confirmed that the gatelines were closed at both ends of the journey AND no passenger was let through without scanning. In the event of a block looking for short faring this can generally be verified, but not in the event of normal operations. There is all manner of valid reasons why a ticket may be used but not scanned. If there weren't such reasons the refund policy change would have been totally unnecessary.

 

[robbeech]

The absence of a scan of course tells you nothing, unless it has been 100% confirmed that the gatelines were closed at both ends of the journey AND no passenger was let through without scanning. In the event of a block looking for short faring this can generally be verified, but not in the event of normal operations. There is all manner of valid reasons why a ticket may be used but not scanned. If there weren't such reasons the refund policy change would have been totally unnecessary.

Indeed. A passenger could however go through a closed barrier using a different valid ticket (for whatever reason) too. There’s nothing that they could reasonably do to lawfully refuse to pay out, but as this is the railway they’ll do as they please.

 

[Starmill]

The absence of a scan of course tells you nothing, unless it has been 100% confirmed that the gatelines were closed at both ends of the journey AND no passenger was let through without scanning. In the event of a block looking for short faring this can generally be verified, but not in the event of normal operations. There is all manner of valid reasons why a ticket may be used but not scanned. If there weren't such reasons the refund policy change would have been totally unnecessary.

Even then it wouldn't confirm anything. Scans are dropped all the time. I've seen the hard evidence of it with my own eyes that some previous scans were visible on another device and others weren't. Other times scans appear late.

The presence of a scan in whatever system you're using to look for them gives some evidence. The absence of one isn't evidence of a thing.