Refund due to website error?

[Imatrain]

I'm currently on a train from East Croydon to Littlehampton that departed at 11.34am.

At East Croydon there were several ticket machines out of service, and the train was about to arrive so I tried to book a ticket on my phone.

I say tried - because I went from the National Rail app to the Southern website, and got to the point of entering a code that was texted to me to approve my PayPal payment - but the next screen I saw was asking me to give my PayPal email address again.

So having not seen an order confirmation I naturally assumed this order had failed, and a machine then became available so I made a purchase of paper tickets, which I then proceeded to use for the journey (made the train in the nick of time).

Imagine my surprise when I randomly checked my emails whilst on the train and see that the e-ticket order did go through!

I have sent a message to Southern about this with a view to getting a refund - I wanted to see if anyone on here has ever experienced anything like this, or heard of this?

 

[yorkie]

Sorry to hear that.

How soon did you make the refund request?

Many retailers will have a 'cooling off' period for unused tickets, for example our forum's ticketing site would allow a refund within 15 minutes (for a same-day journey), although I'm not sure if that still applies if you select a departure within that 15 minute window.

I don't know what GTR's policy is, and a quick search didn't produce an answer.

 

[Imatrain]

Unfortunately it was a little while until I noticed the email, and then I spent a bit of time trying to work out how to request a refund - in the end I had to use a generic form to contact GTR...this was about an hour after the purchase.

It is a strange issue - hopefully someone will review my case and see that my e-ticket purchase was 1 minute before my paper ticket purchase, and that the e-tickets were never scanned.

I don't have email alerts set up on my phone and this is one use case where it would have been handy!

 

[WesternLancer]

Unfortunately it was a little while until I noticed the email, and then I spent a bit of time trying to work out how to request a refund - in the end I had to use a generic form to contact GTR...this was about an hour after the purchase.

It is a strange issue - hopefully someone will review my case and see that my e-ticket purchase was 1 minute before my paper ticket purchase, and that the e-tickets were never scanned.

I don't have email alerts set up on my phone and this is one use case where it would have been handy!

If the e ticket was never scanned then I would suggest the e ticket retailer should refund you. Not the retailer of the ticket you actually used.

 

[Imatrain]

Oh yes, that is the plan - the ehticket was purchased on the Southern website

 

[WesternLancer]

Oh yes, that is the plan - the ehticket was purchased on the Southern website

Sorry I missed that.
At least hoping that this will get sorted out relatively easily then given both tickets bought from same retailer even though using different methods.

Will be interesting to see if this is dealt with smoothly.
Keep us posted.

 

[Imatrain]

Thanks, yes I hope that this can be resolved easily, although I don't know if I will get an AI generated response in the first instance which will not take into account the nuances of this issue!

 

[Haywain]

Thanks, yes I hope that this can be resolved easily, although I don't know if I will get an AI generated response in the first instance which will not take into account the nuances of this issue!

You won't know until you try.

 

[island]

In the circumstances I would hope common sense would be applied and a refund given, especially if you used the same company for both purchases and there is evidence the online ticket wasn't used.

 

[D365]

Oh yes, that is the plan - the ehticket was purchased on the Southern website

In the circumstances I would hope common sense would be applied and a refund given, especially if you used the same company for both purchases and there is evidence the online ticket wasn't used.

Agree with island's post above. In my experience, a phone call to Southern customer services is the quickest means to get this resolved:

To find train times or for any other queries:

Call 03451 27 29 20
(open 07:00-20:00). We aim to answer calls as quickly as possible with most of them answered within 5 minutes. When this is not possible, we may arrange to call you back.