Delay Repay problems

[Coryton]

Have I just been unlucky, or are the rail companies now deliberately making it hard to make a delay claim?

 

I used to find it quite easy, even in the days of paper forms.

 

But I've had to spend some time arguing to get money back from Thameslink when their trains were severely delayed. They kept asking for more information, which had to be done by submitting a new claim including uploading the ticket again each time. I wouldn't give up and eventually I got paid - as vouchers not the credit card I asked for because "due to security reasons" they had deleted my card details (and somehow couldn't have asked again).

 

I've just had a claim from GWR repaid as a half hour delay not a full hour. I could have been only half an hour late, so long as I'd bailed out of a train cancelled at Bristol before they told us it was cancelled. I would have pointed that out if they'd given me a "notes" field to fill in. I have appealed (they don't make you fill in all the information again) and we'll see what happens.

 

And I've just done a claim with Greater Anglia who seem to have worked hard to make the process difficult.

 

Apparently I should make five separate claims because there were five of us travelling, but I can tick a box to make a multiple claim (but then there is no way of entering more than one ticket number).

 

I have to tell it how I bought my ticket, when it was valid from and to, give my start and end station twice, tell it when I planned to catch the first train, give the exact time I aimed to catch a train on each leg of a journey (including the time for the first leg again), choose my country from a long list with United Kingdom near the end and enter the ticket number but without the hyphens printed on the ticket.

 

Then if I want a credit card refund they will keep my card number and if I don't like that I can choose to give them my bank account details or get refunded as Amazon vouchers or into Paypal.

 

And at the end it said there was an error and I should hit refresh, which of course lost all the information they made me type in.

 

I suspect they will use the fact that I started and ended short (even though this should be fine as the ticket conditions have no break-of-journey restriction) to refuse payment.

 

I'm generally a believer in incompetence over conspiracy, but at the least they are not making much of an effort to make it easy and at worst they are being deliberately obstructive.

 

Then they have adverts about how great it is you can make delay claims...

 

<End rant>

 

[Gwiwer]

By contrast Virgin West Coast (RIP) have a well resourced automated system if one buys tickets directly from them.  I was once early arriving back at London Euston from Manchester but because my booked train was cancelled in reaction to an earlier line blockage and their system knew that it assumed I would be travelling by the next available train.

 

In fact I had used an earlier train which had been delayed leaving Manchester by almost an hour so was almost in the path of my intended train anyway.  Striding across the concourse at Euston after pulling in a couple of minutes earlier than I had planned I was very surprised to receive an email from Virgin West Coast confirming my Delay Repay entitlement and advising that the full amount of my fare had already been repaid to my card account.  Indeed it had.  Before I had even left the station.

 

I am well aware that some Delay Repay schemes are better run than others.  It is one of the things I deal with on a daily basis.  GWR has only recently opened up to offering compensation "no matter what the cause" but it seems there are still exceptions.  I have an outstanding appeal lodged for a refusal to repay after being delayed 95 minutes owing to "severe weather".  There was no severe weather directly affecting my journey but its effects had caused a tree to fall the day after the storm had passed.  GWR argued that they were not liable to repay in the event of an act of nature beyond their control.  My argument is that their own wording now states that they repay no matter what the reason for delay.

 

TSGN seem to be notoriously picky and slow but in fairness must probably be on the receiving end of more claims than anyone else.  Southern and Thameslink in particular are so often delayed by 15+ minutes than they could receive hundreds of claims from each of hundreds of trains every day.  

 

It is increasingly common and I believe a DfT requirement that TOCs move to 15+ from the previous 30+ or 60+ repayment schemes.  But in line with that it needs to be completely transparent, the claims process needs to be easier and it should be simple to make a claim for multiple tickets - in my GWR example five requiring five individual claims and five appeals - when persons travel together on a single booking.

 

But at least we have Delay Repay.  My Australian companions on the delayed GWR trip were utterly amazed at the prospect of such a thing.  In a land where there are very few long-distance passenger trains but those that there are suffer from all manner of delays and can be many hours late there are no refunds.  You pay up, put up and shut up.

[roundhouse]

GTR will often decline a claim stating the train wasnt 15 minutes late despite me checking it was 16+ late with both my phone and the station clocks. I have a feeling that its due to the departure boards often saying the train has arrived yet its not even in sight on some occasions when I have been waiting on the platform so I guess that they knock a few minutes off the actual arrival time. In other cases when I have been travelling with my other half, one of us gets the full delay claim whilst the other of us gets it reduced down to a lower level of delay. by the time we get the vouchers we often cant recall the details to argue with them and its such a small amount for the 15 - 30 minutes that its just not worth getting wound up over.

 

I now no longer commute due to last years farce on GTR (plus prevoius strikes on Southern) and will avoid the Thameslink trains as much as I possibly can but my other half can't. She needs to do the claim for last Fridays mess where we had virtually no Thameslink services and National Rail advised not to travel. Now that will be  interesting to see what they pay out.

[Coryton]

6 minutes ago, roundhouse said:

GTR will often decline a claim stating the train wasnt 15 minutes late despite me checking it was 16+ late with both my phone and the station clocks.

 

Hmm.

 

For many years, Horsham station announced the arrival of trains well before they were in sight. And before the doors had even opened, the announcements were telling everyone to stand clear so that the train could leave.

 

It's probably still doing it.

 

I suppose the problem with allowing claims down to 15 minutes is that the odd minute here and there becomes quite important.

 

[Gwiwer]

I claim even the small amounts on a point of principle.  I was delayed 20 minutes by Southern (apparently  faffing around at Haywards Heath but I'm sure there was a more professional explanation) while using one of their £5 website-only tickets to the Sussex coast.  The fare was also reduced because I hold a senior railcard so I had paid only £3.20 from London.  I can't even get a Priv rate ticket, to which I am entitled, for that price.

 

So in went the claim and in due course, which was about a month later, something under £2 was returned to my card.  Not enough for even a cheap cup of coffee but the point was made and the process followed.

[Gwiwer]

Quote

the odd minute here and there becomes quite important.

Very true.  

 

On a railway where seconds matter it is not widely appreciated by the public that the "Railway minute" these days is from 29 seconds before until 30 seconds after the exact minute.  The argument goes that if a train due to depart at 12.00 does so at 12.00:35 seconds it is closer to the next whole minute and is therefore recorded as one minute late.  In practice the railway systems (which information can be publicly accessed via Realtime Trains) will usually note that as a half-minute late but past 45 seconds it goes to the full minute. 

 

There is also the difference between clocks.  A customer's watch is outside railway control.  An internet-capable device is normally accurate to within a second or two.  There are cases where the customer asserts the train was (for example) 17 minutes late but omits the fact that their watch was adrift of "true" time by 3-4 minutes.

 

Some claims will be borderline and a call must be made whether to repay in good faith or to refuse.  It won't always be in the customer's favour.

[Coryton]

8 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

I claim even the small amounts on a point of principle.  I was delayed 20 minutes by Southern (apparently  faffing around at Haywards Heath but I'm sure there was a more professional explanation) while using one of their £5 website-only tickets to the Sussex coast.  The fare was also reduced because I hold a senior railcard so I had paid only £3.20 from London.  I can't even get a Priv rate ticket, to which I am entitled, for that price.

 

So in went the claim and in due course, which was about a month later, something under £2 was returned to my card.  Not enough for even a cheap cup of coffee but the point was made and the process followed.

 

You've got more energy than me!

[Coryton]

38 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

It is increasingly common and I believe a DfT requirement that TOCs move to 15+ from the previous 30+ or 60+ repayment schemes.  But in line with that it needs to be completely transparent, the claims process needs to be easier and it should be simple to make a claim for multiple tickets - in my GWR example five requiring five individual claims and five appeals - when persons travel together on a single booking.

 

I can see absolutely no reason for that other than to put people off claiming. It may be within the letter of the rules they've signed up to, but not the spirit.

 

It's all very well saying that everyone should claim for their own money, but if a family is travelling do they expect a 5 year old to go on line and make their own claim?

 

I don't know what will happen with my GA claim.

 

There was a box to tick if travelling in a "large group" but a place for only one ticket number.

 

So I gave it one ticket number, a photo of all five tickets, and the total price.

 

If they want me to make four more claims I might just ask them to either pay up or give me a final letter so I can take it to Transport Focus and see what happens.

[Coryton]

41 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

TSGN seem to be notoriously picky and slow but in fairness must probably be on the receiving end of more claims than anyone else.  Southern and Thameslink in particular are so often delayed by 15+ minutes than they could receive hundreds of claims from each of hundreds of trains every day.  

 

They were very free with their money during the long set of strikes over DOO.

 

At one point you just seemed to have to say you travelled on a strike day and got all your money back.

 

With the emergency timetable you could claim either against the emergency timetable or the one they should have been running.

 

I have a suspicion the money wasn't coming out of their own pockets though.

[roundhouse]

On 14/08/2019 at 21:37, Gwiwer said:

 

 

There is also the difference between clocks.  A customer's watch is outside railway control.  An internet-capable device is normally accurate to within a second or two.

 

Hence why I use my mobile which is constantly checking the time on the internet and aslo station clocks. Even had the OBS state the train is 'x' late and that we can claim delay repay but its been declined. As you say its often only 2 quid so not worth getting wound up over but at least the process has been gone through which costs the TOC. We even insist on the paper vouchers.

 

Looks like my other half will be doing another claim this morning as broken down train in the Thameslink core yet again causing delays at East Croydon. Her train is now terminating at London Bridge.

Edited August 26, 2019 by roundhouse

[Coryton]

10 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

But in line with that it needs to be completely transparent, the claims process needs to be easier and it should be simple to make a claim for multiple tickets - in my GWR example five requiring five individual claims and five appeals - when persons travel together on a single booking.

 

I would like to see the industry defend that.

 

If I turn up to a ticket office and ask for tickets for five people they are quite happy to take my money in one transaction.

 

Likewise if I buy on-line - and I'll get a single transaction code when I do that.

 

But as soon as there is a risk of them giving me some money back, I'm supposed to go through a deliberately tortuous process five separate times.

 

It might help if every time someone makes a multiple claim they had the energy to put in a formal complaint and then take it to Transport Focus. Or maybe not...

 

 

 

 

[40F]

How do I claim for motorway delays ????

[Coryton]

3 hours ago, 40F said:

How do I claim for motorway delays ????

 

Not sure what your point is.

 

Yes the railways operate a delay compensation scheme and there is no equivalent for car travel.

 

But given that they do operate the scheme, and advertise it quite liberally, I think it is underhand to then deliberately frustrate attempts to make valid claims, which is what they seem to be doing.

 

I hope you'll agree that a train which fails to meet the timetabled timings is very different to a car being caught in congestion on a motorway.

 

Maybe we could have a toll system set to control motorway demand with pricing dependent on the time of day, and cheaper prices if you book a slot in advance? (And a heavy penalty if you miss your slot unless you can show it was due to congestion elsewhere on the motorway system?)

[caradoc]

36 minutes ago, Coryton said:

 

Not sure what your point is.

 

Yes the railways operate a delay compensation scheme and there is no equivalent for car travel.

 

But given that they do operate the scheme, and advertise it quite liberally, I think it is underhand to then deliberately frustrate attempts to make valid claims, which is what they seem to be doing.

 

I hope you'll agree that a train which fails to meet the timetabled timings is very different to a car being caught in congestion on a motorway.

 

Maybe we could have a toll system set to control motorway demand with pricing dependent on the time of day, and cheaper prices if you book a slot in advance? (And a heavy penalty if you miss your slot unless you can show it was due to congestion elsewhere on the motorway system?)

 

The railways do operate a delay compensation scheme, and to the best of my knowledge it is more generous than anything offered by any other form of transport in the UK. It should of course be simple to make a claim, but at the same time the industry has to guard against fraudulent claims (not that I am suggesting that applies to anything discussed here !)

 

My only experience of Delay Repay was this June when I booked a First Class single for my Mum from Birmingham to Glasgow, which cost around £46 (in itself a surprise, given that according to the RMT we have the most expensive rail fares in Europe). The train terminated 40 minutes late for, as far as I could tell, no fault of Virgin's, and within days I received an automatic refund of 50% of the fare. Had she flown instead, she would only have received any refund had the plane been at least 3 hours late, and only then if it was the airline's direct fault.

 

I agree that paying compensation for road delays is unrealistic, and it is fair enough to criticise the railway when it fails to meet its obligations, but competing forms of public transport should be liable to identical compensation arrangements.

 

 

Edited August 15, 2019 by caradoc
Spelling mistakes

[big jim]

I’ve claimed delay repay a couple of times with different experiences 

 

virgin paid back the full £95 family ticket fare for a 65 minute delay without issue on within a couple of days, we were actually still on the mini break when the money went back in the account!  (I was surprised they paid out to be honest as t was the day storm Doris happened so all trains were running at 50mph) 

 

however we were delayed a couple of weeks back returning from a day trip in london when our booked london north western train was cancelled north of rugby, knowing this before we boarded at Euston we caught another train that called at every shack but went directly to crewe, I put in a claim but it was rejected as ‘there was no evidence to a delay to the service’ despite us arriving into crewe 61 minutes later than planned

 

I put in an objection quoting the cancellation, the exact train times at certain locations, reporting numbers, possible earliest arrival time into crewe based on the time the cancelled train arrived into rugby (which happened to be the train we caught from london) all thanks to info on real time trains, within a couple of days they agreed to pay back the £28 fare 

 

virgin were excellent to deal with however the site LNWR was really difficult to try and claim back from, had to do a separate claim for each ticket but it kept giving me the same reference number for each claim which made things very difficult when I wanted to open a dispute 

Edited August 15, 2019 by big jim

[40F]

2 hours ago, Coryton said:

 

Not sure what your point is.

 

Yes the railways operate a delay compensation scheme and there is no equivalent for car travel.

 

But given that they do operate the scheme, and advertise it quite liberally, I think it is underhand to then deliberately frustrate attempts to make valid claims, which is what they seem to be doing.

 

I hope you'll agree that a train which fails to meet the timetabled timings is very different to a car being caught in congestion on a motorway.

 

Maybe we could have a toll system set to control motorway demand with pricing dependent on the time of day, and cheaper prices if you book a slot in advance? (And a heavy penalty if you miss your slot unless you can show it was due to congestion elsewhere on the motorway system?)

 

 

My point is all travel is a risk and rail travel is no exception. Why should the railways be forced to pay out when the delay may not be their fault ie weather. Todays society is what is in for us and nothing else 

[Classsix T]

1 hour ago, 40F said:

 

 

My point is all travel is a risk and rail travel is no exception. Why should the railways be forced to pay out when the delay may not be their fault ie weather. Todays society is what is in for us and nothing else 

Whilst I'm in agreement that Delay Repay is perhaps an unfortunate indicative of the blame culture we find ourselves in, some rail specific points;

1, Its in the sodding franchise agreement, ain't it? 

2, For the cost of season tickets currently, asking punters that may be paying thousands of pounds per annum, to not expect recompense for non delivery of a service stinks of a one sided contract, or at least making it up as you go along.

3, The TOCs do alright if it's NRs fault, which "we" pay for via £9bn.

 

Aside from all that, I'm baffled that you see multi million pound turnover profit led companies as "victims" and the average Joe is somehow attempting to fleece them. Don't draw similarities with the road network either, there's no parity between vastly disperate transport systems.

 

C6T. 

[40F]

21 minutes ago, Classsix T said:

Whilst I'm in agreement that Delay Repay is perhaps an unfortunate indicative of the blame culture we find ourselves in, some rail specific points;

1, Its in the sodding franchise agreement, ain't it? 

2, For the cost of season tickets currently, asking punters that may be paying thousands of pounds per annum, to not expect recompense for non delivery of a service stinks of a one sided contract, or at least making it up as you go along.

3, The TOCs do alright if it's NRs fault, which "we" pay for via £9bn.

 

Aside from all that, I'm baffled that you see multi million pound turnover profit led companies as "victims" and the average Joe is somehow attempting to fleece them. Don't draw similarities with the road network either, there's no parity between vastly disperate transport systems.

 

C6T. 

 

No need to be baffled though . It is obvious the system is at fault

[Coryton]

2 hours ago, 40F said:

 

 

My point is all travel is a risk and rail travel is no exception. Why should the railways be forced to pay out when the delay may not be their fault ie weather. Todays society is what is in for us and nothing else 

 

Still not with you I'm afraid.

 

Are you saying that despite signing up to the scheme and promoting it to passengers, it's actually unreasonable to expect railway companies to pay compensation for delays, so they are justified in making it deliberately hard to claim?

 

Whether anyone likes it or not, the scheme exists, and we pay for it either in our ticket prices or taxation, so I do not think it's unreasonable of me to expect to get paid when the rules say I should be, without having to jump through unnecessary hoops. (If it really is necessary to list the start, end and departure time of every single leg of my journey to prevent fraud, why do I have to also give the same information for the overall journey when they have that already from the individual legs?)

[Classsix T]

2 hours ago, 40F said:

 

No need to be baffled though . It is obvious the system is at fault

If you read my post properly, it's not the the system that's baffling, it's your take on it.

 

C6T. 

[Gwiwer]

Quote

First Class single for my Mum from Birmingham to Glasgow, which cost around £46 (in itself a surprise, given that according to the RMT we have the most expensive rail fares in Europe).

The £46 fare will be heavily discounted and might include a railcard discount also.  The "Anytime" First Class single fare between Birmingham (all stations) and Glasgow (all stations) is £204.

 

When one looks at the walk-up fares (Anytime, or the old Ordinary Single / Return) we probably do have the most expensive in Europe.  We also have lower levels of subsidy than elsewhere meaning the user is paying more of the true cost.  And we also have many cheaper options.  For the same Birmingham - Glasgow journey the cheapest fare I can find is £16.50 standard class restricted to certain dates / trains and using any of the 1/3 off railcards; for first class using the same criteria it is £37.60.  Both are much more restrictive than the Anytime ticket being valid only on one or two trains on a mid-week date I selected randomly some six weeks in advance but it serves to illustrate the point.

[Dava]

I'm still chasing a EMT claim from 2 July when the line was blocked at Wigston by a fatality. I was delayed over 2 hours and train terminated at Harbro', thence to Leicetser by bus. Rejected first time, have appealed twice, no response, EMT dies this weekend. I suspect they have more claims than they can cope with from floods, fools & fires..

[57xx]

I had an hour delay getting to Sheffield on East Midlands because they released a slow train in front of ours out of St Pancras and we were stuck behind it all the way up to Chesterfield where they then decided to terminate our train. I put in the claim online and had a cheque back within a week, it was actually really easy.

[caradoc]

13 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

The £46 fare will be heavily discounted and might include a railcard discount also.  The "Anytime" First Class single fare between Birmingham (all stations) and Glasgow (all stations) is £204.

 

When one looks at the walk-up fares (Anytime, or the old Ordinary Single / Return) we probably do have the most expensive in Europe.  We also have lower levels of subsidy than elsewhere meaning the user is paying more of the true cost.  And we also have many cheaper options.  For the same Birmingham - Glasgow journey the cheapest fare I can find is £16.50 standard class restricted to certain dates / trains and using any of the 1/3 off railcards; for first class using the same criteria it is £37.60.  Both are much more restrictive than the Anytime ticket being valid only on one or two trains on a mid-week date I selected randomly some six weeks in advance but it serves to illustrate the point.

 

It was indeed a Senior Railcard fare, and restricted to certain trains, however that suited us fine. However the statement that Britain has the most expensive fares in Europe, with no further comment, is just as misleading as the newspapers' regular shock horror stories that flying across the Atlantic is cheaper than the train from London to say Manchester, while failing to say that they are comparing the most expensive possible rail fare with the cheapest possible air fare.

 

[Dava]

My outstanding claim to EMT, which they wrongly rejected and I contested, was courteously settled by EMR on their Day One today. A good start. EMT were trying to save money/overloaded/didn't care anymore. Lest see what Abellio do.

Dava