Virgin west coast delay repay issue

[Phil from Mon]

My wife and I travelled Bangor to Paddock Wood off peak return (1 normal, 1 senior railcard) over the weekend on November 13 - total fare for us both was £175 or so. The journey back on the Monday was delayed up from London, and we arrived in Chester too late for our ATW connection, the next train along the coast was also delayed a bit and we ended up about an hour and 10 late into Bangor.

I applied to Virgin for delay repay and was sent a voucher for £45, which I felt was too low given what we had paid and the total delay of over an hour. After a few calculations I got back to them, and have just been sent another for £42.73, giving a total of £87.73, which is the correct sum.

The accompanying letter states:

....Over recent weeks we have been dealing with an increased level of correspondence and compensation claims in particular. This has resulted in us taking significantly longer to reply to everyone than we would have liked. Because of this, we decided to send a standard response with a set amount of compensation so that we could reply more quickly.

In the majority of cases the compensation.....was equivalent to or higher than we would normally offer. Unfortunately some customers were entitled to more than they received in our initial response and I apologise for any additional frustration we have caused."

Are they allowed to do this? I think this is Virgin pulling a fast one and hoping that people will not notice their compensation is too low. It would be interesting to be able to examine the validity of their claim that "in the majority of cases compensation was equal to or higher." I cannot see any company willingly paying out more than they have to.

 

[najaB]

I cannot see any company willingly paying out more than they have to.

Remember though that they receive significantly more from NR than they pay out, even if they are paying the full amount due.

 

[Carntyne]

They're well known for doing this regularly.

 

[thedbdiboy]

Remember though that they receive significantly more from NR than they pay out, even if they are paying the full amount due.

It isn't at all realistic to compare the track access agreements with passenger compensation, despite constant stirring by unions and press.The track access contract incorporates two way schedules so that both NR and the TOC are incentivised to provide the agreed level of service. The money moves both ways in that contract and many of the payments are balancing payments where TOC money paid on account is refunded.

The Passenger's Charter operates independently of this to provide passengers with compensation if they are delayed beyond a certain period - there is no requirement for passengers to compensate the TOC if they cause a delay!

If compensation to passengers was linked to NR compensation to TOCs, all hell would break loose at a TOC-caused incident with passengers being told there was no money due as they weren't getting any from NR....

 

[najaB]

It isn't at all realistic to compare the track access agreements with passenger compensation, despite constant stirring by unions and press.

I'm not trying to equate the two, just pointing out that for the most part passengers don't claim so if they overpay a few who do it's more than compensated for by the payments they receive from NR (assuming that they didn't cause the delay of course). If everyone claimed their full entitlement then they would be considerably tighter on payments.

 

[Llanigraham]

Back on topic:
My opinion is that they should have paid you more, as that is what it says they do on their website, but they are hoping that most people will just accept the £45 and forget the rest. I would hang on to the voucher but write back reminding them of what they state and asking for the balance.
(I am expecting a friend to be in exactly the same situation shortly!)

 

[krus_aragon]

Back on topic:
My opinion is that they should have paid you more, as that is what it says they do on their website, but they are hoping that most people will just accept the £45 and forget the rest. I would hang on to the voucher but write back reminding them of what they state and asking for the balance.
(I am expecting a friend to be in exactly the same situation shortly!)

Phil stated in the OP that he has written back and already received the rest.

I suppose the only advantage to the customer of Virgin's short-cut £45 handouts is if they weren't expecting any (or little) compensation. Several members have had RTV's sent in response to simple queries or even compliments, when their letter's been too long for Virgin to bother reading.

 

[Starmill]

This is very very unsurprising. I seem to recall it happened to Neil Williams recently when he was entitled to 100% of a simgle for longer than an hour's delay with VT.

The other side of the coin, at my guesswork, is that ineligible claims are being sent £45. I don't actually know this obviously but my experience stems from other customer relations issues, mostly unavailable First Class catering (note: complaints not claims) which still recive a standard response and fixed voucher value, irrespective of tickets. That said again for First Class issues this isn't too surprising either because most First Class tickets will cost rather more than £45.

In the past, I've been sent even higher fixed sums when I was more than 3 hours late and there were delays arranging taxis for everyone at Manchester Piccadilly at 0100.

 

[PermitToTravel]

I very much doubt though that the average delay claim on VT is for less than £45 given their ticket prices. As they have a separate form for delay repay claims I think it's very disingenuous of them.

 

[Starmill]

They might have chosen £45 because it is close to the average value of a claim.

The people who claim (given we know it's not a very large proportion of those entitled) are probably those most conscious of money and thus also of the price of their tickets.

I can believe the average claim being £45. The average fare? Probably a lot more.

 

[njr001]

Slightly off topic but picking up one of Starmill's points, I recently complained about a recent VTEC first class trip from Darlington to London with no hot food by the time I was asked and the only available sandwiches were egg & cress - not something I would normally choose, all I received was a £5 RTV.

 

[Starmill]

Slightly off topic but picking up one of Starmill's points, I recently complained about a recent VTEC first class trip from Darlington to London with no hot food by the time I was asked and the only available sandwiches were egg & cress - not something I would normally choose, all I received was a £5 RTV.

Oh yes. Generosity following First Class catering failures, which aren't exactly uncommon on either operator, and are mostly their own fault as a result incorrect stock loading, machine failures or staff shortage, is not common practice at the Virgin Trains East Coast floor of the Plymouth Customer Relations department! You were lucky to get anything more than platitudes and non-apologies (such as "we're sorry you were not satisfied with the service.").

 

[island]

Indeed – as the service is complimentary I have previously been told that I would get a refund for the cost of it, which was zero.

 

[Phil from Mon]

Back on topic:
My opinion is that they should have paid you more, as that is what it says they do on their website, but they are hoping that most people will just accept the £45 and forget the rest. I would hang on to the voucher but write back reminding them of what they state and asking for the balance.
(I am expecting a friend to be in exactly the same situation shortly!)

I did, as noted subsequently by Krus-Aragon!

 

[gray1404]

In answer to the OP quesiton, no VT are not allowed to pay out less then what is due according to the Delay Repay scheme. It is wrong of them if they do and I customer, upon submitting a valid claim, should not have to be writing back in again to get the rest.

 

[Skie]

They have been doing it for years. Had a £900 group journey claim and only got £40ish back until I pointed out that was somewhat below the correct amount. Eventually got the £800+ balance but it's somewhat frustrating for their customers and seems like a false economy to me as they get double the correspondence/work from some people as a result.

 

[rishton82]

With regards to paying out £45, how many people who could claim don't. Also how many people claim not excepting anything and are happy at £45, but should get more but don't bother.

 

[CheesyChips]

This is such a British issue. We complain about our railways both justifiably and unjustifiably but when it comes to mandated compensation schemes we don't really like to bother anyone or make a fuss Even when the TOC is willing and able to pay out.

 

[monxton]

FWIW, I submitted a Delay Repay to VT West Coast last week, and just received the full amount of my claim. It was for a journey to Glasgow Central, booked prior to Storm Frank. I had booked a train straight through from Coventry to GLC, but instead had to change at Preston and Carlisle, and take the Dumfries diversion route.

I was concerned that VT might not pay my full claim because my journey started in the south, travelling on Cross Country to Coventry, and I had split the tickets, albeit bought with a single booking reference for the whole journey. Moreover, Virgin's Delay Repay form has a pull-down for origin station which only includes stations where VT stop, not my actual origin station, so I had to put Coventry.

However I received vouchers for the full cost of the journey, and after only a few days.