I've had a few disputes with TPE over delay repay, I started to take pictures of departure boards to prove I was at the places and to back up my claim. It proved useful in this case which took the longest to sort:
Travelling from Chorley home to Seamer usually I would use the direct service to Man Vic. and change to TPE there. On the day in question the Victoria train was cancelled, but I was at the station in time to catch the earlier service via Piccadilly. On arrival at Salford Crescent a quick scan of the departure board showed I was going to miss my Scarborough train if I waited for the next service to Victoria, so I remained on the train to Deansgate, bought a tram ticket, and arrived on the platform at Victoria about 5 mins before the Scarborough train was due to leave. Took picture of departure board at departure time as was my habit by this time, previously talking to another regular traveller he had used this as evidence during disputes. It was already showing 5 or so late. Journey back across the pennines was the usual slow 'following stopping services', arriving in Seamer about 40 late, cue delay repay. 1st claim was rejected even although I detailed route and produced (time stamped) tram ticket as well. It went to appeal and took ages to sort, but I didnt let it drop. Initially they told me I should claim off Northern, but I had arrived in time for my TPE train. Then they told me route wasnt possible, well it was I had tickets and evidence to prove it. Eventaully it got to a snail mail letter writing pitched battle, this got results and an apology, in a previous communication they even accused me of fraud.
Surely if you produce evidence, pictures, timed other public transport tickets etc. they must realise its a genuine claim.
At this time I was travelling for the day to the NW once or twice a week and was racking up delay repay on probably half the journeys, so I dont know if this flagged me.
It often feels like there are staff dedicated to rejecting claims at any cost, and this sort of thing must be taught. There are worrying but unsurprising numbers of examples of claims where it is initially rejected for a nonsense reason, on appeal, it is rejected again, but for a completely different nonsense reason, and often a third time for a completely different nonsense reason, as if they're determined to reject the claim and are pulling reasons out of a hat to get the passenger to sod off.
The main problem with how claims are rejected is there is no easy way to click a button to ask for a manual review. Lots of TOCs require you to start a brand new claim and key in all the details again which is very cumbersome
There shouldn't be much need for one though. If the systems were set up to Accept or pass on to manual review then we would see things improve. The issue is the systems are setup to accept or reject, and the criteria for reject includes missed connections, can't deal with them so just spits it out as a rejection. Timetable change, can't handle that, rejection. Ticket used on another operator where ticket acceptance allows it, not happy with that, too complicated to program, rejection.
The entire automated process creams off the absolutely simple claims (which IS most of them) and the rest get spat out into the bin rather than being passed to a human. The humans involved aren't always trained well enough and they just assume that the passenger is trying it on, so they follow what the computer says, and reject again because they don't know the rules. Each time a ticket is rejected it stands a higher chance of not being appealed because the passenger doesn't have time.
And to be fair, they are quite decent.
I have done this a few times. Such as when they hide the cancelled trains!!! And they manually process them
This is rife at the moment. With timetables changing more often than the wind, claims are up in the air. I arranged tickets for a colleague in early May with XC. The train was (something like) a 1003 when the tickets were booked, but by the time the day of travel came it was 0957. Not a problem they were aware of it (i told them) and caught the train. The train was about 45 minutes late and the claim was rejected simply because "we don't have a 1003". The human said the same thing, the human with the stripes said it wasn't delayed and the human with the crown and the stripes said, "ah yes i see what has happened here" and paid out immediately. So, resolved but only with 3 or 4 e-mails and some advanced timetable knowledge.
Again, the system is accept or reject.
The (flawed) argument that is often provided, and has been provided in this thread is that "it's not many people, millions have successful claims, it can't be many people so this is acceptable". The obvious response to this is, if it isn't many people then there is no risk of loss to the operator if they adjust the threshold and have the system refer to manual review.