Chiltern Rail Smartcard - Ticket Didn't Load

[Bristol Rover]

Hoping for some advice.

Once or twice a month I travel to London Marylebone on the Chiltern Line.

To avoid rushing/stress of missing the train while I queue for a ticket, I like to buy my tickets to travel before I get to the station. For day returns, I can either have an e-ticket (with barcode) that gets sent to my email address (and which I can also print), or can load them onto the Chiltern Rail 'Smartcard'.

I prefer the physical smartcard to the e-tickets, as it taps onto the readers at the barriers more easily than scanning a barcode from a phone/piece of paper.

In order to load tickets onto the Smartcard, I can either use the National Rail Smartcard app on my mobile, or validate it at my departing station.

A few days ago, I purchased my ticket as normal online, but it wouldn't load onto the Smartcard. When I got to the station (in plenty of time), I enquired, and the lady behind the counter couldn't get it to load either (either on my phone using the app, or trying to validate it on the machine). I showed her my proof of purchase confirmation (email on my phone), but she said I'd have to buy another ticket in case 'revenue protection' were on the train. I took her advice and bought a second ticket. She said she would refund the second ticket when I returned if I didn't use it (she was expecting the online purchase to load onto the Smartcard during the journey, as I'd purchased the ticket only 1 hour before travel, advising it can take 2 hours).

My query is this - was the advisor correct in stating that I could be fined for travelling without a valid ticket (even though I had purchased a ticket in advance and had evidence of this - the receipt/booking reference on my phone)? To my mind, it would have been extremely unfair to punish me for a failure in the system infrastructure, but I am aware revenue protection officers often apply the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it.

The ticket never did load on the Smartcard (even 6 hours later when I tried again for the return journey) so I used the physical ticket to get through the gates at Marylebone. Upon returning, the advisor had to make a call to Chiltern Railway customer services (holding up other passengers in the queue!), and advising that the non-loading original ticket would be refunded to my bank card. I asked her why it didn't load, even though she could see my purchase - this was just explained as a 'blip'.

The advice to my query will dictate my future purchasing. If I can't rely on the Smartcard to load genuinely purchased tickets (and I run the risk of a fine in doing so, even though I can prove I paid for my journey before travelling) it is useless for my purposes, and I'll simply use e-tickets in future.

 

[Watershed]

Unfortunately, the ticket office lady was correct. The Railway Byelaws make it a 'strict liability' offence to board a train without a valid ticket, or to fail to produce a ticket for inspection, if there are ticket buying facilities at your starting station. Having bought a ticket, and even having proof of payment, isn't a defence to the Byelaw offence - under the letter of the law, you are committing an offence if you don't have the ticket with you (i.e. loaded to your smartcard, in this case) when you board. You could alternatively be issued with a Penalty Fare of £100 (reduced to £50 if paid within 21 days) plus the fare, for failure to produce a valid ticket.

That's not just a theoretical position; we regularly see train companies issue Penalty Fares under these circumstances, and appeals on the basis of having bought a ticket are rarely successful. Sometimes train companies even threaten to prosecute people under these kinds of circumstances, which leaves their typically three-figure out-of-Court settlement offer the cheapest option. It's entirely unreasonable but that is the problem with the law as it stands; it leaves the door open to train companies exploiting it with these kinds of sharp practices.

You're far from the first person to have this kind of experience with smartcards, which is why I much prefer eTickets or paper tickets.

 

[furlong]

In general the railway nearly always expects you to pay out twice when there are technical problems and then to claim back the unnecessary expense later - which is usually done without quibble when you supply all the evidence. In theory, there should be no prosecution or penalty in situations such as that described but if there is, presenting the necessary legal arguments to make them back down could prove expensive in time and money (and you could never be sure you would succeed) and it would involve far more hassle than just buying a duplicate ticket and getting the more expensive one refunded. Always try to have some independent evidence of what happened if you can - here the ticket office provided it. Be inventive - take photos proving where you were (identifiable location) at what time (station clock) and what tickets you had - or in other situations it can be worth asking staff to endorse tickets or provide something in writing that confirms the situation.

 

[VT118]

I asked her why it didn't load, even though she could see my purchase - this was just explained as a 'blip'.

That's odd. I thought Chiltern's policy was "no excuses"

That sounds an awful lot like an excuse.

 

[furlong]

In simplistic terms the choice is to accept the train company breached its contract and so make this clear to the company and create a new contract (buy another ticket) and seek compensation for the breach of the original one after-the-fact, or to attempt to make the company uphold the original contract despite all the impediments (sometimes possible but can be very difficult).

 

[Bristol Rover]

Thanks for the advice. Typical British system that punishes people that try to do the right thing, or those that make an innocent mistake, while the genuine fare evaders get away with it most of the time!

I'll be binning the Smartcard. It's not even that Smart even when it does work - e.g. you can't load tickets where you return on a different day to the outward journey.

 

[Haywain]

That sounds an awful lot like an excuse.

Sounds more like someone having no idea what had happened.

 

[Undiscovered]

There was an issue with tickets not loading onto Smartcards recently. We had an email about it, on train.

We were given discretion to accept travel, and I am led to believe that any irregularities reported would be resolved once the Smartcards number was interrogated in the back office.

It may be that the ticket office was unaware- which does happen sometimes- as communication in the railway isn't always the best. Likewise, there's a possibility the guard may also have been unaware, leading to issues on the train. As others have stated, correct procedure would be purchased new ticket and then claim it back, which I accept is a lot of hassle. Failing that, speaking to barrier/on train staff to see if they're aware and getting permission that way.

 

[Starmill]

At least at Chiltern the ticket office staff are very unlikely to simply say "not my problem" and leave you to sort it out yourself. They were absolutely right to give you what assistance they could. Yes it may still have inconvenienced you slightly, but it does seem they were able to ensure you didn't have too much of a wait for your money back.

 

[Bristol Rover]

Yes, no complaints about the customer service.

It does render the Smartcard useless for me though. The whole point was to save time/stress queuing at the ticket office/machine on the day of travel. If I can't rely it on to successfully load tickets, and find out that when there is a problem I'm liable for a fine (unless I queue up and buy another ticket - i.e. back to Square 1), it's no good at all.

Back to e-tickets/paper tickets for me.

 

[Haywain]

It does render the Smartcard useless for me though.

It happened once - that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again. This seems a bit of an overreaction to me.

 

[Watershed]

It happened once - that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again. This seems a bit of an overreaction to me.

I think the point the OP is making is that if it happened once, it could happen again at any time. Why put yourself through that risk when you can just buy an eTicket that's issued near-instantly and be done with it?

 

[Bristol Rover]

Perhaps - once in the six or seven journeys I've used it for is a fairly high error rate. For me, the whole point is buying a ticket at home on the card and then not having to rush to the station/worry about queuing. If I don't know whether the ticket I've purchased will load, I have to get to the station early/rush just in case anyway. Ergo - for my purposes, it is useless.

If I knew I wouldn't get fined for their systems not working then I'd carry on using it, but as has been pointed out, they are within their rights to do so.

I think the point the OP is making is that if it happened once, it could happen again at any time. Why put yourself through that risk when you can just buy an eTicket that's issued near-instantly and be done with it?

Exactly!

It's a shame that there isn't a 'back-up' option that if the Smartcard doesn't get the ticket, you can access an e-ticket for the same transaction.

 

[BanburyBlue]

I use a Chiltern Smartcard and they can be a bit random. Whenever I've had a problem with the Smartcard not opening barriers, I've shown the person at the gates my Smartcard and booking confirmation and they've always let me through. Only time it was a problem was at Birmingham Snow Hill, where the guy on the gates was training a new boy and was trying to teach the new boy how to do things properly. I must admit, I am always concerned when it does happen as I'm not sure whether I've done the right thing or not, especially when there is a full scale revenue protection check on the train or at Snow Hill. I did try the manual 'NFC ticket loading' but that didn't seem to work either. What has worked in my favour is that the train managers on Chiltern don't seem to like Smartcards either, so normally they just glance and don't bother to scan it.

That said, I've finally worked it out. When I get to the gates at Banbury in the morning I present my Smartcard. If it goes red and refuses to let me through, I move the Smartcard away from the sensor, count to 3 slowly and try again, and normally it lets me through on the 2nd attempt.

What has surprised me though, is no one seems to be able to give me an answer as to what I should do if the Smartcard won't open the barriers. I've asked Chiltern staff at the barriers, Chiltern train managers, I even sent a query to Chiltern customer services. No one has given me a definitive answer as to the proper action to take.

 

[talldave]

It happened once - that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again. This seems a bit of an overreaction to me.

That's not acceptable. My bank card works every time, my Oyster card works every time. Somehow, because it's "the railway" its long suffering paying customers are meant to tolerate a poorly specified/implemented/tested (delete as appropriate) system that’s not fit for purpose. No. It's not good enough. If TOC's want to beta test their inadequate infrastructure on customers then give them a financial incentive to do so whilst suffering the inconvenience.

It's laughable that the industry's expectation is that the customer has to have the funds to pay for the entirety of the service again and spend days/weeks struggling to get a refund.

 

[tonycockram]

That's not acceptable. My bank card works every time, my Oyster card works every time. Somehow, because it's "the railway" its long suffering paying customers are meant to tolerate a poorly specified/implemented/tested (delete as appropriate) system that’s not fit for purpose. No. It's not good enough. If TOC's want to beta test their inadequate infrastructure on customers then give them a financial incentive to do so whilst suffering the inconvenience.

It's laughable that the industry's expectation is that the customer has to have the funds to pay for the entirety of the service again and spend days/weeks struggling to get a refund.

Good job you aren’t with Barclays or three mobile lol! Just in the last week or so, they’ve had issues.

 

[Bristol Rover]

Today's update. Actually had plenty of time this morning so thought I'd 'risk' the Smartcard again for another trip to Marylebone.

This time, I successfully managed to load the ticket onto the Smartcard within 10 minutes of purchase online. Nice quiet journey into London, although as usual the train pulls in a mile from the barriers (I don't think I've ever been on a train that arrives near the buffers!).

After the trek, I get to the gates - tap the card on the reader and .... "Seek Assistance" . Have to fight my way past the queuing hordes stuck behind me and get out of everyone's way.

I took my phone out and loaded National Rail Smartcard app. Tapped the card against it, and the ticket was still loading and showing as 'active', so thought I'd try the gates again before seeking out a staff member. Second time lucky, opened with no issues.

As someone else has pointed out - contactless cards and Oyster cards always seem to work perfectly - these Chiltern Rail smartcards seem very glitchy. And even when they do work, the card isn't read as smoothly as the Oyster/contactless - you have to hold it there.

I don't think I'll be using again.

 

[talldave]

Good job you aren’t with Barclays or three mobile lol! Just in the last week or so, they’ve had issues.

And they're so rare they make national news. And still my Barclays bank card worked faultlessly.

We could have a news channel dedicated to TOC smartcard ticket failures it seems. Since the underlying technology is robust you do wonder what kludges the TOCs have employed to render the system so unreliable?

 

[tonycockram]

And they're so rare they make national news. And still my Barclays bank card worked faultlessly.

We could have a news channel dedicated to TOC smartcard ticket failures it seems. Since the underlying technology is robust you do wonder what kludges the TOCs have employed to render the system so unreliable?

It’s absolutely shocking that the ticket hasn’t loaded on twice now. I agree with op, not worth bothering with! I love how the blame is on the passenger first too, to be expected to buy a ticket again and claim back. Not fit for use.

 

[Budge1980]

The Chiltern Smartcard can be a bit of a nightmare. I like to use it as I don’t have to worry about battery on phone and a paper ticket gets destroyed by the ticket barriers on the underground (if purchasing a day travel card). Staff are always willing to let you through but are at a loss as to what happens. Last time at Marylebone they could see on their screens I had bought a legitimate ticket- showed me the screen and what they were looking for.

it works more often than not but not a nice feeling when it fails, which it does far too often so not used my smartcard for a while.

 

[fandroid]

I have an SWR Smartcard. Never had any trouble loading it almost immediately using the SWR App on my phone. Never had it fail at a gate either, and that includes various LUL gates when I have loaded a one day Travelcard on it. It's slightly slower opening the LUL gates than my Oyster is, but as it's a "foreign" Smartcard I guess the system has to delve around a bit!

Far more successful for me than the problem-prone paper Travelcards. I also keep the National Rail Smartcard App loaded on my phone, in case I have to show the ticket to any staff member who doesn't have a Smartcard reader.

 

[winks]

I do like the SWR touch smartcard. However - I’m starting to get fed up with a flag being raised where the system says I haven’t tapped out. Even though there is a pre-loaded London Day Travelcard Z1-6 on there. This is irratating when I’ve tapped in at Clapham but didn’t tap out at BSK. Surely the software should take the London Z1-6 travelcard as primacy over tap to go. This seems to conflict with Tap2Go which I may turn off soon !