West Midlands Trains - Farcical

[Grumpy Git]

Claimed Delay Repay due to a cancelled Crewe to Liverpool service.

WMT have refused due to "the delay not being caused by one of our trains" ( I arrived at Crewe on a VTWC service to Manchester, which may have had a slight delay, but would not have caused me to miss the WMT service).

Can they knock me back when their train was cancelled?

 

[yorkie]

No that's not a valid reason to refuse a claim.

 

[Grumpy Git]

No that's not a valid reason to refuse a claim.

Thanks for that Yorkie. I guess they play this card hoping people give-up?

 

[yorkie]

Quite possibly or its extreme incompetence and inadequate training.

 

[Grumpy Git]

There is something about appealing their decision in the email, but I haven't got the time (or inclination) to follow it up ATM.

 

[yorkie]

Give them another chance, and state that if they do not compensate you after a second chance you will treat this as a 'deadlock' letter and will therefore be referring it to the Ombudsman https://www.railombudsman.org/making-a-complaint/start-a-complaint/

 

[trebor79]

Was your VTWC service delayed such that the minimum connection time was no longer present? Even though it would have been physically possible for you to make the connection had the train not been cancelled, they may see it as VTWC being liable?
I've had the reverse before, where GA paid me for a 15 minute delay when in fact I was over an hour late to Cardiff. I appealed, pointing out they'd assumed I'd made a cross London connection in less than the minimum connection time, and they did then pay out properly.

 

[gray1404]

Log back into your delay repay claim on the WMT website and appeal. The time it took you to create this post is about the time it can take to appeal. Just state that they have made a mistake as they operated the train that was cancelled and this caused an overall delay to your journey. Then restate what the was that was cancelled. You only have 28 days to appeal from the date of their decision so I'd crack on and do it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There is something about appealing their decision in the email, but I haven't got the time (or inclination) to follow it up ATM.

Dead easy to appeal, just check the status of the claim online, hit the appeal button and type in why, takes all of ten seconds.

 

[30907]

Had this happen to me with Northern, because my journey started on another TOC; they agreed very promptly. If Northern can do it, WMT can....

 

[Grumpy Git]

Finally they have admitted their original (and somewhat bizarre) decision to blame VTWC for their cancelled train was incorrect.

£12.65 refund for a "120+ minute delay".