TOC website allowing disallowed local railcard discount

[lyndhurst25]

The terms and conditions of a certain local railcard say that it "cannot be used exclusively within the A/B C area or exclusively between V, W, X and Y/Z". However, the website of the TOC that promotes the railcard will happily sell discounted tickets between those stations! It won't however discount tickets for journeys outside of the railcard's area, so it's not being completely dumb.

Is this just a case of bad website programming? Or is it a mistake in the fares database, as brfares.com will also show the incorrectly discounted fares?

Not that I'd risk it, but what would be the sanction if a passenger was to travel using such an incorrectly discounted ticket? All they have done is buy online, filling in the "station names" and "railcard held" boxes.

 

[bb21]

Not that I'd risk it, but what would be the sanction if a passenger was to travel using such an incorrectly discounted ticket? All they have done is buy online, filling in the "station names" and "railcard held" boxes.

Nothing I suspect. A contract was formed on the basis of the information you filled in. Ticket withdrawn, TIR filled in for further investigation if needed.

There is an argument that knowingly entering into a contract containing obvious mistakes for the sole purpose of taking financial advantage is fraudulent behaviour. That said, no TOC is going to pursue such a case down that road for a few quid's worth of a local fare.

 

[Paul Kelly]

I think I know the example you're talking about! The problem is really neither bad website programming nor a mistake in the fares database, it's just that the schema used in the fares database doesn't support the concept of a geographically-restricted railcard being valid for travel only between some of the stations in its area and not between all of them. I don't think it used to be possible to buy tickets discounted with that particular railcard online; perhaps that problem was overlooked or forgotten about by a change of TOC management when the facility was added?

A related silly example is that the fares database says a Cotswold Railcard is valid at Worcester Park (in Surrey, nowhere near the city of Worcester): http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=WCP&dest=WOS&rlc=CTD Ticket issuing systems that don't check the fare against an itinerary might therefore be able to sell a ticket such as Worcester Park to Worcester Shrub Hill with a Cotswold Railcard, but systems that include a journey planner won't - as they'll notice that the itinerary goes through plenty of intermediate stations that aren't in the Cotswold Railcard area.