....If I go into a rail ticket office, I can ask advice of the staff which is the best ticket to buy, or (having done my research first) I can simply ask for the ticket, and pay for it. A good ticket clerk, knowing that the fares system is rather complicated, may well wish to ensure that I am buying the correct ticket for my needs. Thats fine, but at the end of the day, he should (legally must) sell me what I ask for so long as it is a genuine product....
I disagree with the last brackets, I so no reason why the clerk must sell (legally or otherwise) a ticket. That is not to say clerks will go around denying sale of a ticket to everyone.
....If I wish to buy a single from Thurso to Georgemas Junction at Penzance ticket office, it is my right to do so....
"right" may not have been the word you actually mean, you do not have a right to buy a ticket.
....It is none of his business why I am doing that...
For the most part I agree, but that is besides the point.
....If I am asking for a complex set of tickets, it should be fairly obvious that I have done my homework and know what I want with no further advice required.....
You'd think so wouldn't you, but ime it doesn't work that way.
I sell maybe 5-10 sets of splits every day, not because I know them but because the passenger makes it known that they want them. However, it is clear from the way they ask that 80% or more have no idea what they are actually buying, in fact I doubt they really care. Most have been told by someone that it is cheaper and that's all that matters to them.
....The purpose of a retail outlet is to retail products. A ticket office is a retail outlet for railway products. I am a willing buyer of those products why make it difficult and make me feel bad about buying those products?....
In most cases there is no reason to "make it difficult", but sometimes just explaining what the restrictions are seems to come across as "making it difficult" to some.
....The company operating a ticket office receives a good commission on the products sold. Trying to sell me something more expensive than I require is, being charitable, poor practice. Doing so knowingly and intentionally is heading towards fraud (legal people insert the correct crime name). If I ask for a return from A to B, they should sell me that ticket it is what I asked for, buyer beware applies. If I ask for the cheapest way, by train, from A to B, and the cheapest tickets are split, if they know about it then they should offer me those split tickets....
Doesn't work like that. Imagine a passenger buys a split everyday and then one day a clerk is on duty who doesn't know the split. The passenger just knows that they pay £x because they always have, the details aren't important to them because they have never needed to know and it just does what they need. What does the clerk do? Spend time finding a split that they have no idea about? Or try to persuade the passenger to be 'ripped off' for one day? Either way it's not good for the clerk.
....Put it another way, if I go to the station on successive days and buy a peak return ticket from A to B, would / should the ticket office advise me that a season ticket would work out cheaper?....
Depends, if you go along on the first day and ask about travelling many days, the clerk should make you aware of season tickets if they would work out cheapest. If you go each day and ask for only that day's travel, they probably won't (it will rarely be cheaper than one day's travel). If they notice that you regularly travel, they might suggest it to you, but there is no obligation to do so until you ask about it.
....However...
If you request a specific ticket that should be sold. If you request fares for a specific journey you should be advised of the fares available for that journey in a manner that is impartial to different TOCs. For example, for a journey from Doncaster to London you should not be offered only the fares for Hull Trains and East Coast to the exclusion of Grand Central (and East Midlands). The only vaguely reasonable excuse for not selling a ticket is being unable to find it in the ticket issuing system, which can quite often happen with a temporary fare....
There are other reasons, I mentioned one earlier in the thread which no one has yet responded to (passenger already has a ticket).
....I am astonished at the suggestion that a ticket office can actually choose whether to sell a ticket or not (leaving aside that the example given is a somewhat irrelevant one). There are enough problems in providing good service to customers without creating unnecessary arguments.
It's not so much a choice, I'm not saying that clerks can pick and choose what they sell, but if, for example, a passenger asks for a ticket which is definitely not valid for the journey being made, the clerk is not compelled to sell it.
To add to what Haywain has posted, I don't think clerks are allowed to proactively offer split tickets as this would almost certainly be a breach of the TSA.
Potentially. There are cases where it would make no real difference, but yes it could be seen in many cases as being unfair to one TOC or very much favouring another.
A question to those who argue that TOCs have no obligation to sell the ticket requested by a customer - are there any criteria by which they decide whether to sell a ticket or not? What are these criteria?
[I'm not taking sides, just curious]
As a general rule staff don't decide not to sell tickets, despite what some people are trying to put across on this thread, it's not like that, and each clerk would have to judge a given situation on it's merits, but if they are aware that a person is unfit to be on the railway they might refuse, if the passenger is already in breach of a byelaw they might refuse, if the service cannot be provided they might refuse, the list goes on.
