Rejected RRB delay repay & claiming compensation

[MrJeeves]

On 12 Nov, services from Brighton to Three Bridges were replaced with rail replacement buses.

I planned to catch an RRB from Wivelsfield to Three Bridges before connecting onwards with a Thameslink service to Blackfriars.

I arrived for the 1149 rail replacement, which never arrived. The following RRB (coach) arrived at around 1235 with only two seats left, and then I gave up with this idea at about 1319 when I opted to board a Metrobus service from the shared RRB stop to Crawley bus station, then catch a Southern service (14:10 delayed to 14:14) from Crawley to Three Bridges, then connecting onto a Thameslink service at Three Bridges at .

I submitted a delay repay claim to Thameslink, who have rejected it as their system shows RRB's as "on time" no matter what has happened.

In total, I paid:

£5.20 - Metrobus fare
£1.70 - Crawley to Three Bridges (keyGo)
£16.10 - Burgess Hill to London Zones 1-6

There's records of the RRB issues on Twitter within Thameslink's replies (not from me):

• https://twitter.com/jc_985/status/1591402930846199808

I would preferably like to be reimbursed for my bus and single train fare, as well as the delay repay compensation.

Is there any particular phrasing I should include in a message to their customer services email in order to make this more likely to be issued?

Cheers all!

 

[spag23]

Did you arrive at your starting point already in possession of a ticket for the whole of the intended journey? Or - nearly as good - did they sell you a ticket for the whole journey at your point of departure?
As I understand it, Delay Repay - or any other compensation - will be limited to the journey you'd actually booked &/or purchased; not the same as "planned".

 

[MrJeeves]

Did you arrive at your starting point already in possession of a ticket for the whole of the intended journey? Or - nearly as good - did they sell you a ticket for the whole journey at your point of departure?
As I understand it, Delay Repay - or any other compensation - will be limited to the journey you'd actually booked &/or purchased; not the same as "planned".

I arrived and bought a Travelcard on my smartcard at the ticket machine, before going to the rail replacement bus stop, choosing the option to buy from a different origin station (Burgess Hill — one stop before Wivelsfield) to allow me more options to get home.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

who have rejected it as their system shows RRB's as "on time" no matter what has happened.

Have you resubmitted it? The first attempt is done by auto systems, resubmitting gets humans to manually review records. If after that fails, contact customer services.

 

[island]

Just resubmit it so it gets human review.

I would preferably like to be reimbursed for my bus and single train fare, as well as the delay repay compensation.

I don't think you will get both of these. Either you used your train ticket and can get DelayRepay (which from the sounds of it will be for the full price of your ticket), or you did not use it and can get the ticket refunded without admin fee. You can't "double dip".

 

[ThameslinkUser]

You can't "double dip".

Bar a gesture of goodwill, of course.

 

[MrJeeves]

Just resubmit it so it gets human review.

I don't think you will get both of these. Either you used your train ticket and can get DelayRepay (which from the sounds of it will be for the full price of your ticket), or you did not use it and can get the ticket refunded without admin fee. You can't "double dip".

I did use the ticket, though, between Three Bridges and London 1-6, and 1-6 back to Burgess Hill.

GTR were simply unable to provide an effective service on the outbound leg, and on the return leg I took the one and only train service running that evening before start of service the next day (which was also delayed and I claimed DR for).

Had they provided an effective service, I would not have encountered any delay.

From my PoV, I was delayed on the outbound leg and eventually gave up attempting to use their service and had to arrange alternative transport.

 

[island]

I did use the ticket, though, between Three Bridges and London 1-6, and 1-6 back to Burgess Hill.

GTR were simply unable to provide an effective service on the outbound leg, and on the return leg I took the one and only train service running that evening before start of service the next day (which was also delayed and I claimed DR for).

Had they provided an effective service, I would not have encountered any delay.

From my PoV, I was delayed on the outbound leg and eventually gave up attempting to use their service and had to arrange alternative transport.

I understand all that, but you still aren't entitled to a refund as well as DelayRepay.

 

[spag23]

There seem to be three elements here:
1.Delay Repay
2.Refund
3.Compensation for additional costs
The OP may be administratively barred from claiming 1 & 2 together.
But I gather he's essentially expecting (rightly IMO) 1 and 3; with 3 perhaps being bigger than 2 anyway.
I wouldn't call this double dipping.
The OP suffered delay AND additional costs, so should be entitled to recompense for both.

 

[Starmill]

I did use the ticket, though, between Three Bridges and London 1-6, and 1-6 back to Burgess Hill.

GTR were simply unable to provide an effective service on the outbound leg, and on the return leg I took the one and only train service running that evening before start of service the next day (which was also delayed and I claimed DR for).

Had they provided an effective service, I would not have encountered any delay.

From my PoV, I was delayed on the outbound leg and eventually gave up attempting to use their service and had to arrange alternative transport.

I understand all that, but you still aren't entitled to a refund as well as DelayRepay.

Perhaps in future the OP would like to make a claim in these circumstances neither for a refund nor compensation under 'Delay Repay', and instead claim for losses arising from a failure to provide the service under contract in line with the "reasonable care and skill" provision? The NRCoT clarifies that such claims are possible, but of course, that the same claim cannot be lodged more than once - i.e. you must choose one route only. As your delay claim has been rejected, hypothetically you could write to Southern withdrawing the original claim and making a new one in its place.

It may not necccesarily be in your interest to do this of course because the assessment of your damages under an alternative method might well be less than under 'Delay Repay'. If you wish to persist with Delay Repay it would seem that your entitlement is straightforward and Southern's process is simply flawed. You would be quite entitled to write a further complaint that you think that the assessment of Delay Repay claims is fundamentally flawed. The company are obliged to follow the ORR's Delay Compensation Code of Practice under their licence, which can be found at: https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2022-03/delay-compensation-code-of-practice.pdf

 

[island]

Perhaps in future the OP would like to make a claim in these circumstances neither for a refund nor compensation under 'Delay Repay', and instead claim for losses arising from a failure to provide the service under contract in line with the "reasonable care and skill" provision? The NRCoT clarifies that such claims are possible, but of course, that the same claim cannot be lodged more than once - i.e. you must choose one route only. As your delay claim has been rejected, hypothetically you could write to Southern withdrawing the original claim and making a new one in its place.

It may not necccesarily be in your interest to do this of course because the assessment of your damages under an alternative method might well be less than under 'Delay Repay'. If you wish to persist with Delay Repay it would seem that your entitlement is straightforward and Southern's process is simply flawed. You would be quite entitled to write a further complaint that you think that the assessment of Delay Repay claims is fundamentally flawed. The company are obliged to follow the ORR's Delay Compensation Code of Practice under their licence, which can be found at: https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2022-03/delay-compensation-code-of-practice.pdf

That would also be a valid option for someone to attempt to pursue, though in my opinion not this specific OP; having made their choice of what claim to make, I think they are stuck to it and can't go down a different road.

 

[Starmill]

That would also be a valid option for someone to attempt to pursue, though in my opinion not this specific OP; having made their choice of what claim to make, I think they are stuck to it and can't go down a different road.

In general I think that this would be the case yes. It would seem utterly ridiculous of Southern to refuse to allow a claim on a different track, having previously chosen to outright reject the original claim (noting that they didn't contact the OP with questions or clarifications, they just rejected the claim), but they may well hold that position, and if they do there's not much the OP could do about it. The OP is, as you say, still entitled to pursue results on the track they've already begun, but they need to be aware that claims for Delay Repay in particular cannot exceed the value of the tickets in question.

 

[WesternLancer]

Given my experience with Southern (and I assume Thameslink use the same system across TSGN but I do not know for sure) I think the OP will need to be prepared to engage in detail and in a protracted manner with customer services, as their on line claims process is poorly designed to say the least - in case it is of any use to @MrJeeves my thread is here - that only recently concluded after asking for a simple correct D-R payment after a delay back in late August

Delay - Repay claim partial rejection by Southern - opinion sought

Hi - on Friday 26 August two of us were travelling Southampton Central to Berwick (sussex) leaving S'Ton Cntl at 10.28 That train from Southampton was delayed by 19 mis arriving in Brighton - so we missed the coastway east connection to Berwick (the 12.30 to Hastings due at Berwick at 12.59...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[MrJeeves]

I did resubmit my DR claim as "resubmitted", and it was rejected again.

I'm now going to contact them by email and request compensation for the bus fare on their sister company, and requesting compensation for the delay as well.

Reading back through this, many people have seemed to think I wanted a refund for my ticket? This is definitely not the case since I did use it for travel on that day. I never suggested this was what I wanted, to clarify, and if I wasn't clear with that, I apologise.

Usually GTR have been very prompt in dealing with any issues I raise about all sorts of stuff, from gateline databases wrongfully rejecting tickets, to railcard issues on the Key, mishandling of keyGo taps, DR resubmissions (providing additional info via Twitter), and prepaid taxis during disruption, and I'm hopeful this will be no different.

 

[MrJeeves]

I got a reply from my email to GTR:

Dear David

Thank you for contacting us regarding your recent journey between Three Bridges and Brighton. I am very sorry to hear that there were issues with the Rail Replacement service, and also the difficulties you had making a claim.

To ensure we can process claims quickly and in a cost effective way, claims are assessed automatically using National Rail data. However bus movements aren't registered so claims for delays in replacement buses should be processed manually by one of our claims team. It appears that in this instance your claim may have not been sent for manual processing and was therefore incorrectly declined. Our sincere apologies for this.

I am sorry to say that we are unable to pay manually processed claims by electronic means, however I have arranged for £30 in cashable rail vouchers to be posted to you in settlement. These should be ready to post in the next week and you can spend them or exchange them for cash at any of our ticket offices.

Kind regards

Interesting the person said Brighton, but I guess maybe it wasn't just me who moaned via email...

Everything is sorted now!